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EDUCATION     AND    THE    MORES 

A  Sociological   Essay 


BY 

F.  STUART  CHAPIN,  A.  M. 

Sometime  University  Fellow  in  Sociology 


SUBMITTED  IN  PARTUL  FULFILMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS 

FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

IN  THE 

Faculty  of  Poutical  Science 
Columbia  University 


NEW  YORK 
1911 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/educationmoressoOOchaprich 


< 

^1 


t.. 


EDUCATION    AND    THE    MORES 

A  Sociological  Essay 


BY 


F.  STUART  CHAPIN,  A.  M. 

ri 
Sometime  University  Fellow  in  Sociology 


SUBMITTED  IN  PARTUL  FULFILMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS 

FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

IN  THK 

Faculty  of  Political  Science 
Columbia  University 


NEW  YORK 
19II 


Copyright,  191  i 

BY 

F.  STUART  CHAPIN 


PREFACE 

This  essay  is  an  attempt  to  interpret  education  in  the 
light  of  one  of  its  principal  social  functions.  By  education 
is  meant  the  training  of  younger  generations  by  older  mem- 
bers of  the  community.  The  adults  may  instruct  in  their 
capacity  as  parents,  as  participants  in  ceremony  or  as  mem- 
bers of  a  civil  institution.  In  any  of  these  cases  their  activ- 
ity has  the  support  of  social  sanction.  This  sanction  is 
group  approval,  expressed  or  implied,  of  any  activity  which 
is  conducive  to  group  welfare  or  survival.  Since  group 
success  is  generally  associated  with  certain  traditions,  to 
conserve  them  becomes  the  aim  of  education. 

A  consideration  of  the  beliefs  and  the  habits  of  thought 
which  are  perpetuated  by  this  process  requires  a  definition  of 
the  mores.  The  mores  are  forms  of  usage  which  have  current  •^"' 
approbation  in  a  community  at  a  time  and  place.  They  are 
a  mass  of  customs,  habits,  ways  of  thinking  and  acting,  which 
ordinarily  we  accept  and  follow  without  attention.  We  be- 
come aware  of  them  only  when  attention  is  drawn  to  some 
act  or  notion  that  shocks  our  sense  of  propriety  and  de- 
corum. The  mores  are  the  objective  products  of  interstimu- 
lation  and  response. 

The  concept  of  "  mores  "  has  received  most  elaborate 
treatment  in  Professor  Sumner's  book,  "  The  Folkways." 
The  writer  can  do  no  better  than  to  quote  at  this  point  cer- 
tain passages  from  it.  Says  Sumner :  "...  we  must  con- 
ceive of  the  mores  as  a  vast  system  of  usages,  covering  the 
whole  of  life,  and  serving  all  its  interests;  also  containing  in 
265J  5 


226943 


6  PREFACE  [266 

themselves  their  own  justification  by  tradition  and  use  and 
wont,  and  approved  by  mystic  sanctions  until,  by  rational  re- 
flection they  develop  their  own  philosophical  and  ethical 
generalizations,  which  are  elevated  into  '  principles  *  of 
truth  and  right."  ^  And  in  another  passage  Sumner  says 
of  the  mores :  "  They  are  the  ways  of  doing  things  which 
are  current  in  a  society  to  satisfy  human  needs  and  desires, 
together  with  the  faiths,  notions,  codes,  and  standards  of 
well  living  which  inhere  in  those  ways,  having  a  genetic 
connection  with  them.  By  virtue  of  the  latter  element  the 
mores  are  traits  in  the  specific  character  (ethos)  of  a  society 
or  a  period.  They  pervade  and  control  the  ways  of  thinking 
in  all  the  exigencies  of  life,  returning  from  the  world  of 
abstractions  to  the  world  of  action,  to  give  guidance  and 
to  win  revivification."  ^  For  the  purpose  of  this  study  it  has 
seemed  best  to  put  emphasis  upon  the  unconscious  charac- 
teristics of  the  mores.  In  this  respect  the  conception  of  the 
mores  held  by  von  Hartmann  and  Lazarus  is  illuminating. 
Von  Hartmann  says  :  "  The  mores  are,  before  any  beginning 
of  reflection,  the  regulators  of  the  political,  social,  and  re- 
/ligious  behavior  of  the  individual.  Conscious  reflection  is 
\|  the  worst  enemy  of  the  mores,  because  mores  begin  uncon- 
sciously and  pursue  unconscious  purposes,  which  are  recog- 
nized by  reflection  only  after  long  and  circuitous  processes, 
and  because  their  expediency  often  depends  on  the  assump- 
tion that  they  will  have  general  acceptance  and  currency, 
uninterfered  with  by  reflection."  ^  Lazarus  says :  "  The 
mores  are  usage  in  any  group,  in  so  far  as  it,  on  the  one 
hand,  is  not  the  expression  or  fulfilment  of  an  absolute 

1  Sumner,  Folkways  (Boston,  1907),  p.  79- 
» Ihid.,  p.  59. 

8  K.  R.  E.  von  Hartmann,  Phdnomenologie  des  sittlichen  Bewusstseins 
(Berlin,  1879),  p.  7Z' 


267]  PREFACE  7 

natural  necessity  (e.  g.,  eating  or  sleeping)  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  independent  of  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  in- 
dividual, and  is  generally  accepted  as  good  and  proper,  ap- 
propriate and  worthy."  ^ 

A  study  of  education  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing  con- 
ceptions shows  that  in  many  instances  the  community  seeks 
to  preserve  its  mores  by  initiation  ceremonies.  It  seeks 
to  make  reverence  for  the  group  traditions  a  habitual  atti-  ' 
tude  of  mind.  In  other  societies,  selected  classes  seek  to 
perpetuate  certain  of  their  mores.  Education  is  to  train 
youth  in  the  habit  of  reverence  for  antiquity  and  uncritical 
admiration  for  the  works  of  classical  writers.  In  yet 
other  societies,  there  has  been  in  education  a  differentia- 
tion of  function  concomitant  with  a  differentiation  of 
interests.  Consequently  we  have  educational  systems  aim- 
ing to  preserve  certain  mores  of  many  different  classes. 
But  in  all  communities  the  principal  social  function  of  edu- 
cation has  been  the  conservation  of  certain  traditions.  The 
mores  of  place  and  time  have  determined  which  traditions. 

Throughout  this  essay  the  terms  tradition,  custom,  super- 
stition, and  prejudice  are  frequently  used.  It  will  be  well 
to  define  them  here. 

By  tradition  is  meant  any  way  of  thinking  or  any  way  of 
acting  which  has  become  habitual  in  a  group  of  people  and 
associated  with  the  group's  past  achievements.  Tradition 
is  the  general  term  embracing  all  the  mental  achievements  of 
mankind  from  habits  of  thought  to  social  institutions.  Tra- 
ditions are  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation 
by  suggestion,  imitation,  and  instruction,  and  are  regarded  ^ 
as  important  group  prerogatives.  Traditions  always  have 
a  certain  rational  justification,  however  slight.  By  rational 
justification  is  meant  a  justification  involving  explanations 
based  upon  logical  reasoning  from  cause  to  effect. 

1  Zeitschrift  fur  Volkerpsychologie,  vol.  i,  p.  439. 


8  PREFACE  [268 

By  custom  is  meant  habits  of  thought  and  action  which 
are  of  a  more  local  nature  than  tradition.  Custom  is  one 
of  the  particular  forms  of  tradition. 

Superstitions  are  traditions  which  have  highly  irrational 
sanctions  connected  with  them.  The  emotional  element  is 
usually  pronounced. 

By  prejudice  is  meant  dogmatic  or  authoritative  views 
on  any  subject  which  do  not  admit  of  adjustment  in  the 
face  of  established  contradictory  facts. 

F.  Stuart  Chapin. 

New  York,  April,  191  i. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 


The  Thesis  OutKned i 


CHAPTER  II 
Some  Historical  Antecedents  of  Tradition 19 

CHAPTER  III 
Education  Conserves  the  Mores 35 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  Importance  and  the  Extent  of  the  Mores 70 

CHAPTER  V 

Elementary  School  Curricula  and  the  Mores 82 

269]  9 


CHAPTER  I 
The  Thesis  Outlined 

The  original  function  of  education  was  the  conservation 
of  tradition  and  custom,  and  when  we  examine  the  subject- 
matter  of  primitive  tradition  we  suspect  that  education  has 
functioned  chiefly  as  a  conserver  of  Superstition  and  Pre- 
judice. This  suspicion  perhaps  would  be  unimportant  if  it 
applied  only  to  former  educational  schemes.  Unfortunately 
it  reaches  further,  because,  as  the  writer  expects  to  show, 
home  and  institutional  education  is  still  predominantly  con- 
cerned with  the  transmission  of  tradition  and  custom. 

Possibly  this  statement  does  not  redound  to  the  credit  of 
organized  education.  We  must  remember,  however,  that 
like  church  and  government,  education  had  its  humble  and 
strange  beginnings.  For  it  to  have  become  liberal  suddenly 
would  have  been  a  miracle.  In  the  early  ages,  education 
was  the  first  conscious  effort  of  primitive  man  to  assure  the 
future  observance  of  those  habits  of  thought  and  action 
embodied  in  his  customs  and  traditions,  which  he  asso- 
ciated with  past  successes  and  failures,  and  which  he  quite 
naturally  felt  must  be  the  mainsprings  of  future  success 
and  happiness.  Traditions  are  relatively  immovable  things, 
they  are  at  the  center  of  gravity  of  any  social  system  and 
their  inertia  is  at  once  a  source  of  strength  and  of  weak- 
ness. Certain  traditions  were  associated  with  group 
strength  and  group  safety.  Men  sought  to  conserve  them 
by  inculcating  in  the  young  a  sense  of  their  importance  and 
power.     Later  on,  when  institutional  education  developed, 

there  was  a  tendency  to  discriminate  in  the  choice  of  ma- 
271]  II 


12  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [^2^2 

terial  to  be  conserved.  But  only  in  more  recent  times  have 
men  begun  to  realize  the  dangers  of  too  literal  an  interpre- 
tation of  the  content  of  traditions  and  customs.  With  this 
realization  has  grown  a  desire  to  change  the  spirit  of  edu- 
cation from  a  mere  eulogistic  study  of  the  past  to  a  critical 
estimate  of  the  common  interests  of  humanity  as  repre- 
sented in  its  traditions. 

It  is  therefore  the  purpose  of  this  study  to  call  attention 
to  the  inertia  and  rigidity  of  tradition,  custom,  and  preju- 
dice; to  show  how  the  social  heritage  has  been  the  source 
of  those  motives  which  have  animated  educational  policy  in 
the  past  and  present;  and  finally,  to  show  how  our  present 
educational  system  still  tends  to  emphasize  the  traditional 
element  with  its  traditional  sanction,  rather  than  the  uni- 
versal element  with  its  sanction  of  humanity's  common 
interests. 

The  phenomena  of  the  child's  expanding  interests  and 
the  study  of  their  appearance  and  development  now  have 
an  important  place  in  scientific  pedagogy.  Children  are 
naturally  observant  of  all  that  goes  on  in  their  environment 
and  their  curiosity  to  find  out  the  "  how  "  and  the  "  why  " 
is  one  of  the  hopes  of  mankind's  future.  But  this  question- 
ing observation,  this  interest  in  all  that  is  new  and  strange, 
is  ignored  or  is  actually  discouraged  by  parents  anl  teach- 
ers, and  often  because  of  some  custom/  tradition,  prejudice, 
or  superstition  which  has  a  real  or  fancied  objection  to  en- 
lightenment and  understanding.  Now  if  education  ought  to 
concern  itself  with  giving  the  individual  the  power  of  adap- 
tation to  an  ever-changing  environment,  then  since  customs 
and  traditions  which  stand  for  a  fixed  order  of  things  are  the 
main  obstacles  to  the  acquirement  of  this  power,  it  becomes 
important  to  inquire  into  the  historical  antecedents  of  tra- 
dition and  custom. 

1  Spencer,  Education  (New  York,  i886),  p.  27. 


273]  ^^^  THESIS  OUTLINED  13 

Out  of  the  many  elements  which  contributed  to  the  for- 
mation of  customs  and  traditions,  probably  constant  en- 
vironmental factors  as  sources  of  repeated  stimulation  were 
most  important  in  determining  the  general  trend  or  char- 
acter of  legends,  myths,  and  folkways.  For  instance,  the 
sea  or  ocean  is  often  an  important  element,  character,  or 
deity,  in  the  tales  of  coastwise  tribes. 

The  cumulative  effect  through  long  periods  of  time,  of 
the  responses  of  human  organisms  in  group  life  to  relatively 
constant  factors  of  their  environment,  has  been  a  dominant 
cause  in  the  formation  of  tradition,  custom,  and  prejudice. 
The  product  is  distinctly  a  social  one,  because  interstimula- 
tion  and  response  ^  are  important  factors  in  modifying 
and  compounding  the  effects  of  individual  responses.  The 
individual  responses  are  refracted  by  each  other,  they  play 
upon  each  other,  meanwhile  drawing  new  impetus  from  the 
repetition  of  stimulation  of  this  sort.  One  peculiarity  of 
this  social  product  is  that  it  disseminates  belief  in  a  con- 
stant environment.  Traditions  tend  to  become  dogmatic 
and  static  for  several  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  a 
recognized  law  of  psychology  that  repetition  of  response 
through  repetition  of  the  stimulation  tends  to  make  the 
response  habitual  and  unconscious,  and  habits,  whether  in- 
dividual or  social,  are  relatively  fixed  ways  of  doing  things. 
In  the  second  place,  the  factors  of  environment  which  pro- 
duced the  stimuli,  were,  as  concerns  primitive  man's  un- 
trained powers  of  observation,  apparently  constant.  In  the 
third  place,  man,  as  well  as  other  species,  has  a  dislike  of  ex- 
treme innovation.  Action  was  in  the  line  of  least  resistance 
in  early  society  as  it  is  to-day,  and  it  was  easier  to  follow 
the  grooves  of  custom  than  to  be  daring  and  attempt  inno- 
vation.   Moreover  the  habitual  act,  the  usual  way,  was  asso- 

*  Giddings,  Descriptive  and  Historical  Sociology,  (New  York,  1906). 


14  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [274 

dated  from  time  immemorial  with  group  safety  and  com- 
fort. Finally,  innovations  were  often  associated  with 
chance-failure  or  calamity. 

We  are  driven  in  our  last  analysis  of  social  causation  to 
acknowledge  the  correlation  between  a  belief  in  absoluteness, 
fixity  in  all  things,  immutability,  and  habitual  responses  to 
relatively  constant  environmental  factors.  The  two  seemed 
justifiably  linked  as  cause  and  effect.  Belief  in  the  fixed 
environment  is  amply  illustrated  by  the  growth  of  Theolo- 
gies, philosophic  ideas  of  Perfection,  ideas  of  Utopias,  and 
of  Millenniums. 

The  responses  of  primitive  man  to  the  severe  stimuli  of 
environment,  created  such  vivid  ideas^  and  deeply-etched 
images  in  his  mind,  that  he  could  not  always  distinguish 
between  idea  and  the  objective  fact.  Thus  the  mental  con- 
tent reacted  to  increase  the  constraint  to  which  man  was 
subjected  instead  of  leading  him  out  of  his  difficulties.  But 
those  purely  unconscious  social  habits,  the  folkways,  which 
are  the  result  of  habitual  response,  are  productive  of  a 
social  constraint  that  ensures  type.  Traditions  and  super- 
stitions, forming  the  social  tissue  that  bound  a  man  with  his 
ancestors,  one  age  with  another,  exercised  a  tyranny  and  a 
leveling  power  which  we  have  hardly  yet  been  able  to 
weaken.  We  can  realize  the  effects  of  this  undifferentiated 
social  pressure  when  we  observe  the  monotony  of  life  in  the 
backward  civilizations  of  India  and  China.  But  add  to  the 
social  pressure  of  traditions  and  customs  themselves,  the 
conscious  effort  of  society  to  perpetuate  traditions  by  edu- 
cation, to  stamp  out  innovation  by  persecution,  to  glory  in 
authoritative  usage  and  the  ritual  of  obsolete  customs,  and 
one  can  form  a  faint  conception  of  the  meaning  of  Bagehot's 
"  cake  of  custom." 

Society  found  it  desirable  to  preserve  its  traditions  be- 
cause it  had  come  to  associate  group  survival  with  adher- 


275]  ^^^  THESIS  OUTLINED  ij 

ence  to  what  was  established.  Moreover,  the  notion  was 
widespread  that  since  environment  was  a  constant  quantity, 
what  was  once  done,  was  done  for  all  time.  The  desire  for 
group  survival  and  the  belief  in  fixed  environment  have 
probably  been  the  two  chief  motives  of  education.  Educa- 
tion thus  became  the  preserver  of  tradition  and  custom, 
superstition  and  prejudice.  Men  believed  that  environment 
was  a  constant  quantity,  therefore  they  conceived  home  and 
institutional  education  as  the  process  of  securing  the  adap- 
tation of  each  succeeding  generation  to  what  was  believed 
to  be  a  changeless  order  of  things. 

Accordingly,  that  was  taught  which  the  mores  of  any  time 
said  was  right.  No  account  was  taken  of  the  questioning 
observation,  the  dawning  interest,  and  the  plastic  adaptabil- 
ity of  each  new  generation;  the  best  possible  evidence  that 
environment,  physical  and  social,  was  a  changing  quantity. 
And  man,  confident  in  his  idea  of  the  fixed  environment, 
crushed  out  this  continually  recurring  recognition  of 
dynamic  environment  and  proceeded  to  force  the  old  order 
of  things  upon  the  new  generation,  stunting  its  power  of 
progress  and  refined  adjustment  and  probably  discouraging 
much  valuable  variation.  Education  thus  became  but  an- 
other source  of  social  pressure  to  secure  the  selection  of  the 
superstitious  and  the  tradition-loving. 

But  institutional  education  tended  to  operate  less  crudely 
than  some  other  sources  of  social  constraint.  It  tended  to 
become  more  discriminating  as  time  went  on,  and  slowly 
the  grosser  forms  of  superstition  were  sifted  out.  But  this 
tendency  towards  discrimination  in  the  selection  of  material 
to  be  conserved  was  usually  determined  by  the  overreach- 
ing of  precedent  and  should  not  be  interpreted  as  a  con- 
scious effort  to  select  the  progressive  and  universal.  The 
progress  from  superstitions  of  grosser  sort  to  those  of  milder 
sort,  came  because  of  conflict  between  incongruous  elements 


1 6  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [276 

in  the  mores  of  the  time.  In  their  contest  for  supremacy, 
these  opposing  standards  gradually  canceled  out  of  the  edu- 
cational scheme  those  elements  that  were  least  justifiable 
because  they  had  least  adaptive  capacity  for  meeting  gen- 
uine human  needs. 

With  scientific  discovery  and  mechanical  invention,  man's 
old  belief  in  the  fixity  of  all  things  was  shaken.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  any  other  cause  in  history  has  operated  so  success- 
fully, though  indirectly  and  inadvertently,  to  undermine 
false  notions  engendered  by  tradition  and  superstition,  as 
the  diffusion  of  benefits  attributable  to  science  and  mechan- 
ical invention.  With  the  multiplication  of  benefits  and  the 
popularization  of  scientific  ideas,  the  mores  of  the  most  en- 
lightened social  strata  began  to  see  that  environment 
changes,  is  active,  is  "  dynamic."  The  masses,  however, 
remained  firm  in  their  faith  in  Perfection,  Utopias,  and 
Millenniums.  But  the  old,  crude,  undifferentiated  response 
to  constant  factors  of  the  environment,  was  gradually 
broken  up  into  a  multiform  mass  of  differentiated  responses. 
This  change  has  been  rapid,  because  of  the  marvelous  prog- 
ress of  discovery,  and  a  gradual  diffusion  of  the  implica- 
tions of  the  idea  of  Evolution.  The  mores  are  disorgan- 
ized and  find  adjustment  difficult. 

The  new  idea  of  "  dynamic  "  environment  permeated  the 
mores  of  the  more  intelligent  classes  of  society  which  con- 
trol educational  policy  both  as  models  of  imitation  and  as 
direct  sources  of  power.  It  began  to  appear  in  the  subject- 
matter  that  education  worked  over.  So  organized  educa- 
tion, as  an  effort  to  meet  on  the  one  hand  the  demands  of 
the  upper  social  strata  for  a  diffusion  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge, and  on  the  other  hand  the  demands  of  the  lower 
social  strata  for  the  conservation  of  custom  and  tradition, 
finds  itself  in  a  transition  state.  Subjected  to  the  strain  of 
both  demands,  the  present  generation  of  pupils  suffers. 


2yy]  THE  THESIS  OUTLINED  \j 

The  new  idea  has  crept  in.  First  the  customary  cur- 
riculum (largely  composed  of  traditional  matter)  has  been 
disturbed.  New  subjects  have  been  reluctantly  admitted. 
But  though  the  curriculum  has  been  expanded,  this  good 
has  been  almost  wholly  neutralized  by  retaining  the  dog- 
matic method  in  teaching  the  new  material.  The  subjects 
taught  are  still  taught  as  if  they  were  absolute  or  fixed 
for  all  time.  Things  that  have  arisen  in  acknowledgment 
of  change  and  in  response  to  it,  are  themselves  taught  as  if 
they  were  fixed.  And  this  is  because  the  mores  are  essen- 
tially inert  and  do  not  change  easily  or  rapidly.  General 
scientific  ideas,  because  of  their  implications,  are  disturbing 
to  those  deep-seated  customs  and  traditions  that  are  im- 
bedded in  the  mores.  Besides,  the  folkways  are  social  habits 
which  arose  in  direct  response  to  the  needs  of  particular 
situations.  They  engendered  ideas  which  were  essentially 
opposed  to  universal  suggestions.  Universal  notions  in 
the  beginning  would  have  weakened  group  solidarity  and 
invited  destruction.  Therefore  the  mores  of  to-day,  not- 
withstanding long  conflict  between  slow  changing  traditions 
and  new  interests,  are  still  provincial  and  "  philistine." 
Accordingly,  universal  scientific  notions  penetrating  into 
the  curriculum  of  our  elementary  school  system  have  se- 
cured their  place  there  only  through  a  compromise  with 
hostile  mores.  Therefore  we  have  the  teaching  of  discon- 
nected scientific  facts,  and  general  scientific  notions  are 
made  harmless  to  the  tradition-loving.  All  danger  incident 
to  wide  application  is  removed  by  breaking  science  up  into 
unconnected  groups  of  facts  and  isolated  instances.  This 
is  a  chief  reason  why  the  subjects  of  the  curriculum  appear 
unrelated  and  disconnected  to  the  student.  He  must  learn 
this  and  that  without  explanation  of  what  A  is  for  or  of 
how  it  is  related  to  B. 

Invention,  discovery,  travel  and   improved  methods   of 


l8  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [278 

communication,  are  giving  all  classes  of  society  more  con- 
fidence in  themselves  and  in  knowledge  and  less  confidence 
in  authoritative  usage. 

Nevertheless,  we  carry  along  our  inheritance.  The  prac- 
tical question  becomes  that  of  determining  whether  or  not 
our  present  organized  education  tends  to  conserve  obstruc- 
tive tradition  and  mischievous  prejudice.  Or,  putting  it  in 
another  way,  our  effort  should  be  to  ascertain  whether  the 
pressure  of  elementary  school  education  as  a  type-forming 
instrument  of  civil  society  tends  to  select  the  timid  and 
tradition-loving.  ^' Does  our  elementary  education  give  mere 
drilling  in  traditional  lore  to  a  majority  of  those  who  enjoy 
its  benefits  before  they  quit  school,  or  does  it  train  their  rea- 
soning powers  and  furnish  them  with  knowledge  of  uni- 
versal human  interest? 


CHAPTER  II 
Some  Historical  Antecedents  of  Tradition 

The  historical  antecedents  of  custom,  tradition,  supersti- 
tion, and  prejudice  are  to  be  found  in  the  struggle  of  prim- 
itive man  to  survive  under  the  tremendous  pressure  of 
physical  environment.  Constraint  was  exerted  by  climate, 
extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  variations  of  moisture,  uncer- 
tainty of  food  supply,  dangers  from  wild  beasts,  the  terrify- 
ing or  inspiring  aspects  of  nature,  and  a  thousand  permu- 
tations of  these  factors.  Later  on,  in  the  great  populations 
of  early  civilization,  famine,  epidemic,  and  disease  became 
new  terrors.  For  a  time  terrors  multiplied  as  consciousness 
expanded.  And  every  occurrence  was  seen  as  unique.  The 
world  was  chaotic  and  haphazard,  each  circumstance  was 
the  work  of  a  different  power.  Man  could  not  generalize 
the  phenomena  of  nature  into  law. 

Imagined  terrors  became  themselves  a  source  of  con- 
straint. Ideas  and  images  were  confused  with  facts.  "Even 
in  healthy  waking  life,  the  s^.vage  or  barbarian  has  never 
learnt  to  make  .  .  .  rigid  distinction  between  subjective 
and  objective,  between  imagination  and  reality."  ^  That  is 
to  say,  the  savage's  inability  to  discriminate  between  the 
image  in  his  mind  and  the  environmental  stimulus  which 
produced  it,  led  him  to  accumulate  a  vast  and  complex 
mass  of  superficial  impressions.  These  when  crystalized 
into  beliefs,  were  often  handed  down  from  generation  to 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture  (London,  1871),  ist  ed.,  vol.  i,  p.  402. 
279]  19 


20  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [280 

generation  and  so  were  wrought  into  custom,  tradition,  and 
forms  of  authoritative  usage/ 
Bagehot  said: 

A  modern  savage  is  anything  but  the  simple  being  which  the 
philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century  imagined  him  to  be; 
on  the  contrary,  his  life  is  twisted  into  a  thousand  curious 
habits ;  his  reason  is  darkened  by  a  thousand  strange  prejudices ; 
his  feelings  are  frightened  by  a  thousand  cruel  superstitions. 
The  whole  mind  of  the  modern  savage  is,  so  to  say,  tatooed 
over  with  monstrous  images ;  there  is  not  a  smooth  place  any- 
where about  it.^ 

In  attempting  to  explain  such  complex  phenomena  it  is 
important  to  avoid  implying  a  single  cause.  Most  social 
phenomena  are  products  of  many  small  causes  in  combina- 
tion. It  is  highly  probable  that  the  cumulative  effect 
through  long  periods  of  time,  of  the  responses  of  human 
organisms  in  group  life  to  relatively  constant  factors  of 
environment,  has  been  the  dominant  cause  of  common 
tradition.  Tradition  and  custom  are  distinctly  social  prod- 
ucts, however,  since  the  interstimulation  of  communicating 
minds  is  an  important  factor  in  modifying  and  compound- 
ing the  effects  of  individual  responses.^  Individual  re- 
sponses are  refracted  by  each  other,  and  play  upon  each 

^  In  Dewey  and  Tufts'  Ethics  we  read,  pages  52  to  53 :  "  The  origin 
of  customs  is  to  be  sought  in  several  concurrent  factors.  There  are 
in  the  first  place  the  activities  induced  by  the  great  primative  needs 
and  instincts.  Some  ways  of  acting  succeed;  some  fail.  Man  not 
only  establishes  habits  of  acting  in  the  successful  ways;  he  remem- 
bers his  failures.  He  hands  successful  ways  down  with  his  ap- 
proval; he  condemns  those  that  fail. 

This  attitude  is  reen  forced  by  the  views  about  good  luck  and  bad 
luck.  Primitive  man^ — and  civilized  man — is  not  ruled  by  a  purely 
rational  theory  of  success  and  failure." 

'  Bagehot,  Physics  and  Politics,  p.  120. 

8  Giddings,  Descriptive  and  Historical  Sociology,  passim. 


28 1  ]       HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  TRADITION         2 1 

other  while  becoming  habitual  and,  as  Bagehot  would  say, 
''  caking  "  into  custom. 

When  we  attempt  to  analyze  the  retlativdy  constant 
factors  of  physical  environment  which  exert  a  controling 
influence  upon  man's  mental  content,  we  discover  that  what 
Buckle  terms  the  "  general  aspects  of  nature  "  are  chiefly 
significant.  They  comprise  topography,  drainage,  and 
meteorological  conditions.  The  mountains,  the  heated 
plains,  the  deserts,  the  hurricanes,  the  swollen  rivers,  and 
the  earthquakes  of  India  are  characteristic  aspects  of  nature 
in  that  region.  Rolling  country,  green  hills,  clear  lakes 
are  details  of  a  general  aspect  of  nature  in  England.  With- 
out admitting  that  the  whole  difference  between  the  English 
mind  and  the  mind  of  man  in  India  may  be  attributed  to 
these  environmental  influences  we  must  assume  that  en- 
vironmental differences  have  been  profoundly  effective;  for 
throughout  the  world  the  constraints  of  custom  are  most 
severe  where  society  lives  under  terrible  aspects  of  nature, 
and  least  severe  where  the  aspects  of  nature  are  mild  or  in- 
spiring. 

The  devastations  of  animals  hostile  to  man,  the  ravages  of 
hurricanes,  tempests,  earthquakes,  and  similar  perils,  con- 
stantly pressed  upon  them,  and  affected  the  tone  of  their  na- 
tional character.  For  the  mere  loss  of  life  was  the  smallest 
part  of  the  inconvenience.  The  real  mischief  was,  that  there 
were  engendered  in  the  mind  associations  which  made  the 
imagination  predominate  over  the  understanding,  which  in- 
fused into  the  people  a  spirit  of  reverence  instead  of  a  spirit 
of  inquiry;  and  which  encouraged  a  disposition  to  neglect  the 
investigation  of  natural  causes  and  ascribe  events  to  the  opera- 
tion of  supernatural  ones.^ 

The  general  aspects  of  nature  on  the  whole  inspire  terror 

^  Buckle,  The  History  of  Civilization  in  England,  (Lx)ndon,  1873), 
ch.  ii,  p.  126. 


22  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [282 

or  confidence  as  they  awaken  in  imagination  suggestions 
of  sudden  disaster  or  of  permanent  security.  This  law 
assumes  first-rate  importance  among  primitive  or  savage 
men  who  in  normal  states  of  suggestibility  are  nearly  or 
quite  incapable  of  distinguishing  between  the  images  of 
imagination  and  objective  reality. 

The  human  organism  seems  of  all  organisms  the  most 
sensitive  to  a  large  variety  of  stimuli  : 

Now,  so  far  as  natural  phenomena  are  concerned,  it  is 
evident,  that  whatever  inspires  feelings  of  terror,  or  of  great 
wonder,  and  whatever  excites  in  the  mind  an  idea  of  the  vague 
and  uncontrollable,  has  a  special  tendency  to  inflame  the 
imagination,  and  to  bring  under  its  dominion  the  slower  and 
more  deliberate  operations  of  the  understanding.  In  such 
cases,  Man,  contracting  himself  with  the  force  and  majesty  of 
Nature,  becomes  painfully  conscious  of  his  own  insignificance. 
A  sense  of  inferiority  steals  over  him.  From  every  quarter 
innumerable  obstacles  hem  him  in,  and  limit  his  individual  will, 
His  mind,  appalled  by  the  indefined  and  indefinable,  hardly 
cares  to  scrutinize  the  details  of  which  such  imposing  grand- 
eur consists.^ 

^Buckle,  op.  cit.,  p.  120. 

In  another  passage  Buckle  analyzes  the  effect  of  one  of  the  most 
fearful  aspects  of  physical  environment,  a  phenomena  more  common 
in  torrid  regions  than  elsewhere. 

"Of  those  physical  events  which  increase  the  insecurity  of  Man, 
earthquakes  are  certainly  among  the  most  striking,  in  regard  to  the 
loss  of  life  which  they  cause,  as  also  in  regard  to  their  sudden  and 
unexpected  occurrence.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  they  are 
always  preceded  by  atmospheric  changes  which  strike  immediately  at  the 
nervous  system,  and  thus  have  a  direct  physical  tendency  to  impair 
the  intellectual  powers.  However  this  may  Be,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
as  to  the  effect  they  produce  in  encouraging  particular  associations 
and  habits  of  thought.  The  terror  which  they  inspire  excites  the 
imagination  even  to  a  painful  extent,  and,  overbalancing  the  judg- 
ment, predisposes  men  to  superstitious  fancies.  And  what  is  highly 
curious  is  that  repetitions  so  far  from  blunting  such  feelings, 
strengthens  them,"  ibid.,  pp.  121-122. 


283]       HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  TRADITION         23 

If  a  man  has  once  done  a  thing  in  a  particular  way  he  has 
a  tendency  to  do  it  again  in  the  same  way;  and  if  he  has 
done  it  many  times  he  has  a  strong  tendency  so  to  do  it,  and, 
what  is  more,  he  develops  a  tendency  to  make  others  do  it 
in  that  way.  Professor  Boas  tells  us  that  in  so  far  as  he 
has  been  able  to  investigate  the  causes  of  peculiar  associa- 
tions in  the  mental  content  of  savages,  he  finds  that  in  the 
stream  of  consciousness  of  primitive  men  a  sensory  stimulus 
is  likely  to  release  strong  emotions,  which  in  turn  are  con- 
nected with  certain  groups  of  ideas.  In  this  way  the  emo- 
tions which  are  common  to  both  the  sensory  stimulus  and 
the  connected  ideas,  establish  associations  among  groups 
of  ideas  that  to  us  appear  entirely  unrelated.  For  a  like 
reason,  it  seems  impossible  for  primitive  men  to  establish 
purely  rationalistic  associations  between  sense  impressions 
and  acts  determined  by  volition,  which  seem  obvious  to 
civilized  man.  Moreover,  "A  study  of  primitive  life  shpws 
that  particularly  every  customary  action  attains  a  very 
strong  emotional  tone,  which  increases  the  stability  of  the 
custom."  ^ 

The  individual  tends  to  respond  to  a  sudden  stimulus  in 
a  sudden  and  impetuous  manner;  many  individuals  col- 

1  Boas,  "  Anthropology "  in  the  Columbia  University  Lectures  on 
Science,  Philosophy  and  Art,  p.  25. 

Again,  in  his  essay  "  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,"  Professor  Boas 
says,  speaking  of  traditions  and  activities: 

"  The  more  frequently  this  action  is  repeated,  the  more  firmly  it 
will  become  established,  and  the  less  will  be  the  conscious  equivalent 
accompanying  the  action;  so  the  customary  actions  which  are  of  very 
frequent  repetition  become  entirely  unconscious.  Hand  in  hand  with 
this  decrease  of  consciousness  goes  an  increase  in  the  emotional 
value  of  the  omission  of  such  activities,  and  still  more  of  the  per- 
formance of  actions  contrary  to  custom.  A  greater  will  power  is  re- 
quired to  inhibit  an  action  which  has  become  well  established;  and 
combined  with  this  effort  of  the  will  power  are  feelings  of  intense 
displeasure."  Boas,  "The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,"  Journal  of 
American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xiv,  p.  9. 


24  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [284 

lectively  subject  to  a  stimulus  tend  to  respond  in  a  violent 
manner.  The  cumulative  effect  of  repeated  like  responses 
of  this  sort  is  emotionalism  and  a  certain  violence  and 
grotesqueness  of  imagination.  Where  the  natural  environ- 
ment of  primitive  man,  and  later  of  savage  man,  was  awe 
inspiring  or  terrifying,  the  stimulus  it  gave  to  the  emotions 
was  severe  and  harsh,  and  to  this  harsh  incitement  man  re- 
sponded with  harsh  reflex.  Continued  repetition  of  stimuli, 
whether  the  stimuli  were  objective  environmental  phenom- 
ena or  the  grotesque  ideas  which  they  had  produced  in  man's 
mental  content,  tended  to  make  the  response  habitual. 

The  bulk  of  the  experience  of  man  is  gained  from  oft- 
repeated  impression.  It  is  one  of  the  fundamental  laws  of 
psychology  that  repetition  of  mental  processes  increases  the 
facility  with  which  these  processes  are  performed,  and  de- 
creases the  degree  of  consciousness  that  accompanies  them. 
This  law  expresses  the  well-known  phenomena  of  habit.  When 
a  certain  perception  is  frequently  associated  with  another 
previous  perception,  the  one  will  habitually  call  forth  the 
other.  When  a  certain  stimulus  frequently  results  in  a  cer- 
tain action,  it  will  tend  to  call  forth  habitually  the  same  ac- 
tion. If  a  stimulus  has  often  produced  a  certain  emotion  it 
will  tend  to  reproduce  it  every  time.^ 

We  are  then  safe  in  explaining  various  superstitions  by 
cumulative  response  to  factors  of  the  environment,  which, 
as  manifestations  of  uncontrolable  power,  were  sources  of 
intermittent  and  violent  suggestion  or  stimulation  to  imagi- 
nation. Professor  Boas  says,  "  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  impression  made  by  the  grandeur  of  nature  upon  the 
mind  of  primitive  man  is  the  ultimate  cause  from  which 
these  myths  spring,  but  nevertheless  the  form  in  which  we 

*  Boas,  op.  cit.,  p.  2. 


285]       HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  TRADITION  25 

find  these  traditions  is  largely  influenced  by  the  borrow- 
ing." ^ 

Where  natural  surroundings  are  mild,  the  constraint  they 
exercise  is  refined  and  differentiated  and  the  social  tissue 
of  tradition  and  superstition  is  more  picturesque  than  re- 
volting. The  fact  that  superstitions  of  a  brutal  sort  often 
persist  in  the  folkways  of  a  people  living  in  a  mild  environ- 
ment means  only  that  tradition  and  superstition  die  hard. 
The  law  of  inertia  holds  in  society  as  in  the  physical  world. 
Every  tradition  and  superstition  continues  in  its  state  of 
autocracy  and  intolerance  as  a  source  of  control  until  it  is 
overborne  by  accumulating  interests  and  accidents.  Super- 
stitions in  the  mores  of  a  people  otherwise  enlightened,  if 
not  survivals  from  life  in  another  habitat,  are  commonly 
imitations  from  the  mores  of  a  neighboring  or  conquering 
people.  And  although  in  most  cases  among  enlightened 
peoples,  the  earliest  superstitions  of  the  race  have  long 
since  disintegrated,  they  have  usually  left  their  mark  upon 
mental  aptitudes.  One  consequence  has  been  a  capacity  for 
the  adoption  by  imitation  of  whatever  new  superstitions 
were  most  nearly  like  the  old. 

In  the  superposition  of  peoples  upon  peoples,  in  the  course 
of  social  evolution,  it  has  sometimes  happened  that  various 
superstitions  were  fortified  by  the  discovery  that  some  ele- 
ment was  common  to  the  otherwise  differing  traditions  of 
two  peoples.  In  this  way  one  myth  reenforced  another,  so 
that  by  merest  chance  they  waxed  stronger  while  others  were 
correspondingly  weakened.  Professor  Boas  tells  us  that 
certain  complex  tales  which  could  not  possibly  have  been  in- 
vented twice  are  told  in  Morocco,  Italy,  Ireland,  Russia,  In- 

*  Boas,  "  The  Growth  of  Indian  Mythologies,"  Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  vol.  ix,  p.  9. 


26  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [286 

dia,  Thibet,  Siberia,  and  on  the  prairies  of  North  America/ 
Indeed,  anthropologists  have  begun  to  recognize  that  in  pre- 
historic times  the  transmission  of  cultural  elements  was 
almost  unlimited  and  that  ideas  and  inventions  have  spread 
over  whole  continents.  At  the  close  of  his  description  of 
the  mythology  of  the  Bella  Coola  Indians,  Professor  Boas 
says: 

Our  analysis  shows  that  this  system  cannot  be  considered 
as  an  importation,  but  that  it  probably  developed  among  the 
Bella  Coola  themselves.  After  they  removed  to  their  new 
home,  a  mass  of  foreign  ideas  had  come  into  their  possession 
through  contact  with  their  new  neighbors.  While  these  new 
ideas  were  being  remodelled  and  assimilated,  they  stimulated 
the  minds  of  the  people,  or  of  a  few  members  of  the  tribe,  who 
were  thus  led  to  the  formation  of  an  elaborate  conception  of 
the  world.  The  concept  which  they  have  developed  agrees  in 
all  its  main  features  with  those  created  by  the  men  of  other 
zones  and  of  other  races.  The  mind  of  the  Bella  Coola  phil- 
osopher, operating  with  the  class  of  knowledge  common  to  the 
earher  strata  of  culture,  has  reached  conclusions  similar  to 
those  that  have  been  found  by  man  the  world  over,  when 
operating  with  the  same  class  of  knowledge.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Bella  Coola  has  also  adopted  ready-made  the 
thoughts  of  his  neighbors,  and  has  adapted  them  to  his  en- 
vironment. ' 

For  other  illustrations  of  the  survival  of  tradition  among 
a  migrating  people,  as  a  culture  ground  for  new  supersti- 
tions, we  may  recall  the  belief  in  witches  transplanted  from 
England  to  New  England,  and  the  content  of  the  folkways 
of  the  negroes  of  the  South,  whose  African  superstitions 

1 "  Anthropology,"  p.  21. 

'  "The  Mythology  of  the  Bella  Coola  Indians,"  in  The  Memoirs  of 
the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  p.  127,  vol.  ii. 


28y]       HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  TRADITION          27 

lived  on  after  the  original  source  of  stimulation,  the  old 
environment,  was  left  behind.  Mrs.  E.  Gerard,  speaking  of 
the  tenacity  with  which  the  Transylvania  Saxons  cling  to 
their  old  customs  and  traditions,  says: 

Whoever  has  lived  among  these  Transylvania  Saxons,  and 
has  taken  the  trouble  to  study  them,  must  have  remarked 
that  not  only  seven  centuries'  residence  in  a  strange  land  and 
in  the  midst  of  antagonistic  races  has  made  them  lose  none 
of  their  identity,  but  that  they  are,  so  to  say,  plus  Catholiques 
que  le  papc — that  is,  more  thoroughly  Teutonic  than  the  Ger- 
mans living  to-day  in  the  original  father-land.  And  it  is  just 
because  of  the  adverse  circumstances  in  which  they  were 
placed,  and  of  the  opposition  and  attacks  which  met  them  on  all 
sides,  that  they  have  kept  themselves  so  conservatively  un- 
changed. Feeling  that  every  step  in  another  direction  was  a 
step  towards  the  enemy,  finding  that  every  concession  they 
made  threatened  to  become  the  link  of  a  captive's  chain,  no 
wonder  they  cling  stubbornly,  tenaciously,  blindly  to  each 
peculiarity  of  language,  dress  and  custom,  in  a  manner  which 
has  probably  not  got  its  parallel  in  history.  Left  on  their 
native  soil,  and  surrounded  by  friends  and  countrymen,  they 
would  undoubtedly  have  changed  as  other  nations  have 
changed.  Their  isolated  position  and  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  their  surroundings  have  kept  them  what  they  were.* 

It  is  probable  that  as  primitive  man  began  to  observe  that 
the  blows  of  nature  fell  without  discrimination  upon  all, 
he  began  to  associate  accidental  change  in  the  way  of  per- 
forming a  customary  act,^  with  disaster  to  the  group.  He 
assumed  that  repetition  of  the  innovation  would  be  fol- 
lowed by  like  disaster.^     Similarly,  it  may  have  happened 

1  The  Land  Beyond  the  Forest,  pp.  31-32. 

'  Bagehot,  Physics  and  Politics,  pp.  127-128. 

'  "  The  worst  of  these  superstitions  is  that  they  are  easy  to  make 
and  hard  to  destroy.  A  single  run  of  luck  has  made  the  fortune  of 
many  a  charm  and  many  idols.  T  doubt  if  even  a  single  run  of  luck 
be  necessary"  ibid.,  p.  131. 


28  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [288 

that  the  transgression  of  a  rule  of  conduct  was  followed 
by  calamity  to  the  group.  Thereafter  any  like  transgres- 
sion would  be  carefully  guarded  against,  in  the  belief  that  a 
like  calamity  would  be  the  inevitable  consequence. 

The  dread  of  the  powers  of  nature,  or  of  the  beings  who 
rule  those  powers,  is  properly,  upon  the  grounds  of  reason, 
as  much  greater  than  any  other  dread  as  the  might  of  the 
powers  of  nature  is  superior  to  that  of  any  other  powers. 
If  a  tribe  or  a  nation  have,  by  contagious  fancy,  come  to  be- 
Heve  that  the  doing  of  any  one  thing  by  any  member  will  be 
"  unlucky,"  that  is,  will  bring  an  intense  and  vast  liabiUty  on 
them  all,  then  that  tribe  and  that  nation  will  prevent  the  do- 
ing of  that  thing  more  than  anything  else.  They  will  deal 
with  the  most  cherished  chief  who  even  by  chance  should 
do  it,  as  in  a  similar  case  the  sailors  dealt  with  Jonah.^ 

Thus  the  dread  of  catastrophy  or  disaster  to  the  group,  is 
probably  a  fundamental  cause  of  the  savage's  dislike  of  in- 
novation.^ We  can  form  some  notion  of  how  deep-seated 
and  elemental  a  characteristic  of  our  nature  this  dislike  of 
innovation  is,  when  we  realize  how  widespread  are  pre- 
judices of  all  kinds  among  civilized  people. 

But  in  early  ages  the  act  of  one  member  of  the  tribe 
is  conceived  to  make  all  the  tribe  impious,  to  offend  its  pe- 
culiar god,  to  expose  all  the  tribe  to  penalties  from  heaven. 
There  is  no  "  limited  liability  "  in  the  political  notions  of  that 
time.  The  early  tribe  or  nation  is  a  religious  partnership,  on 
which  a  rash  member  by  a  sudden  impiety  may  bring  utter  ruin. 

^Bagehot,  op.  cit.,  p.  141. 

'  In  Dewey  and  Tufts'  Ethics,  page  53,  we  read :  "  One  of  the  most 
important,  if  not  the  most  important,  object  of  early  legislation  was 
the  enforcement  of  lucky  rites  to  prevent  the  individual  from  doing 
what  might  bring  ill  luck  on  all  the  tribe.  For  the  conception  al- 
ways was  that  ill  luck  does  not  attach  itself  simply  to  the  doer,  but 
may  fall  upon  any  member  of  the  group." 


289]       HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  TRADITION         29 

If  the  state  is  conceived  thus,  toleration  becomes  wicked.  A 
permitted  deviation  from  the  transmitted  ordinances  becomes 
simple  folly.  It  is  a  sacrifice  of  the  happiness  of  the  great- 
est number.  It  is  allowing  one  individual,  for  a  moment's 
pleasure  or  a  stupid  whim,  to  bring  a  terrible  and  irretrievable 
calamity  upon  all.^ 

One  does  not  have  to  go  far  to-day  in  social  discourse  to 
encounter  like  prejudice.  Indeed,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
state  a  novel  idea  to  find  out  how  soon  people  will  become 
suspicious. 

One  of  the  greatest  pains  to  human  nature  is  the  pain  of  a 
new  idea.  It  is,  as  common  people  say,  so  "  upsetting,"  it 
makes  you  think  that,  after  all,  your  favorite  notions  may  be 
wrong,  your  firmest  beliefs  ill-founded;  it  is  certain  that  till 
now  there  was  no  place  allotted  in  your  mind  to  the  new  and 
startling  inhabitant,  and  now  that  it  has  conquered  an  en- 
trance you  do  not  at  once  see  which  of  your  old  ideas  it  will  or 
will  not  turn  out,  with  which  of  them  it  can  be  reconciled,  and 
with  which  it  is  at  essential  enmity.  Naturally,  therefore, 
common  men  hate  a  new  idea,  and  are  disposed  more  or  less 
to  ill-treat  the  original  man  who  brings  it.  Even  nations  with 
long  habits  of  discussion  are  intolerant  enough.^ 

Sir  Henry  Sumner  Maine  has  written  about  the  hatred 
of  change  which  is  one  of  the  prominent  characteristics  of  a 
great  part  of  the  human  race.  In  his  works  on  Ancient 
Law  and  Popular  Government,  he  says : 

It  is  indisputable  that  much  the  greatest  part  of  mankind 
has  never  shown  a  particle  of  desire  that  its  civil  institutions 
should  be  improved  since  the  moment  when  external  complete- 
ness was  first  given  to  them  by  their  embodiment  in  some  per- 
manent record.* 

*  Bagehot,  op.  cit.,  p.  102.  '  Ibid.,  p.    163. 

*  Ancient  Law  (London,  1861),  p.  21. 


30  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [290 

To  the  fact  that  the  enthusiasm  for  change  is  comparatively 
rare  must  be  added  the  fact  that  it  is  extremely  modern.  It 
is  known  but  to  a  small  part  of  mankind,  and  to  that  part  but 
for  a  short  period  during  a  history  of  incalculable  length.  It 
is  not  older  than  the  free  employment  of  legislation  by  popu- 
lar governments.^ 

Vast  populations,  some  of  them  with  a  civilization  consider- 
able but  peculiar,  detest  that  which  in  the  language  of  the 
West  would  be  called  reform.  The  entire  Mohammedan 
world  detests  it.  The  great  multitudes  of  colored  men  who 
swarm  in  the  great  continent  of  Africa  detest  it,  and  it  is  de- 
tested by  that  large  part  of  mankind  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  leave  on  one  side  as  barbarous  or  savage.  The  mil- 
lions upon  millions  of  men  who  fill  the  Chinese  Empire  loathe 
it  and  (what  is  more)  despise  it  .  .  .  the  enormous  mass  of 
the  Indian  population  hates  and  dreads  change.^ 

There  is  a  sense  of  security  in  having  things  settled. 
Even  if  primitive  man  could  not  ascertain  the  natural  causes 
of  a  phenomenon,  his  belief  in  a  supernatural  agency  ful- 
filled the  purpose  as  well.  The  supernatural  explanation 
was  easiest  to  come  by,  for  it  was  immediately  suggested  by 
imagination.  It  required  no  difficult  or  arduous  reasoning 
process.  It  was  quick  and  satisfying.  It  filled  the  need  of 
explaining  things  and  so  gave  the  desired  feeling  of  security. 
If  someone  suggested  that  the  explanation  was  erroneous, 
if  the  supernatural  cause  was  not  the  real  one,  what  then 
was  it  ?  Answer  to  this  question  would  require  a  repetition 
of  the  painful  groping  after  light  which  the  primitive  man 
had  gone  through  to  arrive  at  the  supernatural  explanation. 
Such  dreary  effort  would  require  leisure,  a  luxury  that  came 
in  later  ages  and  not  possessed  by  primitive  man. 

Belief  in  the  fixity  of  their  traditions  and  rituals,  in  their 

1  Popular  Government  (London,  1886),  p.  134. 
'  Ibid.,  pp.  132-133. 


291]       HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  TRADITION         31 

immutability  and  infallibility  as  sources  of  truth  and  guid- 
ance, gave  to  the  people  who  possessed  it,  other  things  being 
equal,  a  greater  solidarity  and  efficiency,  a  much  greater 
power  of  effective  team-work,  than  they  could  have  enjoyed 
with  uncertain  traditions.  Consequently,  established  cus- 
toms and  traditions  were  an  important  element  in  early 
group  survival.  They  aided  the  group  which  possessed 
them  to  overwhelm  the  unorganized  group.  As  sources 
of  strength,  their  survival  was  assured  not  only  by  natural 
selection  but  also  by  imitation  and  adoption. 

Professor  Boas  finds  evidence  among  the  Indians  of  the 
North  Pacific  coast  which  illustrates  the  imitation  of  de- 
sirable traditions : 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  in  the  inner  life  of  the 
tribes  of  the  northern  coast  of  British  Columbia  is  the  great 
importance  of  the  clan  legend,  which  is  considered  one  of  the 
most  valuable  properties  of  each  clan  or  family.  It  is  care- 
fully guarded  in  the  same  way  as  material  property,  and  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  a  person  not  a  member  of  the  clan  to 
tell  the  tradition  as  his  own  is  considered  one  of  the  gravest 
offenses  against  property  rights.  The  possession  of  the  clan 
tradition  is  felt  by  the  Indian  to  be  one  of  his  most  important 
prerogatives.  When,  therefore,  the  Bella  Coola  settled  on 
Bella  Coola  River,  and  were  thrown  into  contact  with  the 
northern  Coast  tribes,  the  lack  of  a  well-developed  clan  tra- 
dition must  have  been  felt  as  a  serious  drawback.^ 

Thus  the  "  imitation  of  appreciated  character,"  as  Bage- 
hot  calls  it,  whether  that  character  be  a  model  individual  or 
a  model  tradition,  is  a  great  force  in  primitive  and  savage 
society.  But  the  model  imitated  must  be  presented  in  the 
garb  of  the  old  and  accustomed,  because: 

...  on  the  whole  we  value  most  highly  what  conforms  to 

*  "  Mythology  of  the  Bella  Coola  Indians,"  p.  123. 


32  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [292 

our  previous  actions.  This  does  not  imply  that  it  must  be  iden- 
tical with  our  previous  actions,  but  it  must  be  on  the  line  of  de- 
velopment of  our  previous  actions.  .  .  No  action  can  find  the 
approval  of  a  people  which  is  fundamentally  opposed  to  its 
customs  and  traditions.^ 

Tarda  has  shown  how  the  imitation  of  a  mere  fashion 
that  attracts  attention  as  an  admirable  one  becomes  in  time 
fixed  itself: 

.  .  .  imitation  which  was  at  first  custom-imitation  and  then 
fashion-imitation,  turns  back  again  to  custom,  but  under  a 
form  that  is  singularly  enlarged  and  precisely  opposite  to  its 
first  form.  In  fact,  primitive  custom  obeys,  whereas  custom 
in  its  final  stage  commands,  generation.  The  one  is  the  ex- 
ploitation of  a  social  by  a  living  form;  the  other,  the  exploi- 
tation of  a  living  by  a  social  form.^ 

Many  of  the  factors,  physical  and  social,  in  primitive 
man's  environment,  operated  to  increase  his  belief  in  abso- 
luteness, fixity,  immovableness,  and  constancy,  as  the  great 
law  of  existence.  When  we  think  of  the  short  period  of 
written  history  as  compared  with  the  vast  stretches  of  time 
which  preceded  our  oldest  authentic  date,  we  can  begin  to 
understand  how  deep-seated  and  elemental  a  thing  in  man's 
nature  is  his  faith  in  established  usage  and  we  can  even 
make  allowance  for  his  aversion  to  innovation.  All  the 
ages  of  unwritten  history  did  little  else  but  pound  into  man'* 
mental  content  a  reverence  for  the  established  and  a  hatred 
of  innovation.  Shall  this  teaching  of  the  ages  be  contro- 
verted in  a  few  centuries  ? 

But  there  is  another  side  to  this  whole  matter.  The  harsh 
social  pressure  generated  by  the  accumulation  of  supersti- 

^  Boas,  "  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,"  p.  10. 

-  Laws  of  Imitation  (New  York,  1903),  Parsons  trans.,  p.  253. 


293]       HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  TRADITION         33 

tions  and  irrational  belief  produces  a  social  selection.^  The 
dread  of  the  consequences  of  innovation,  a  dread  established 
in  man's  mental  content  through  centuries  of  teaching  which 
had  all  emphasized  the  advantage  of  changeless  customs, 
this  dread  of  innovation  produced  a  widespread  and  uncom- 
promising intolerance.^  Just  as  the  rigors  of  the  physical 
environment  through  natural  selection  chose  certain  adapt- 
able types  for  survival,  so,  long  before  civilization,  the  social 
hatred  of  the  innovator  exercised  a  social  selection  which 
chose  in  all  cases  for  approval  and  in  most  cases  for  actual 
survival,  those  individuals  who  continuously  adhered  to  tra- 
dition. 

In  those  regions  where  the  environment  was  harsh  and 
violent  in  its  stimulation  of  imagination  and  where  a  cor- 
respondingly cruel  and  grotesque  content  of  tradition  had 
developed,  those  individuals  best  got  on  who  conformed 
most  literally  to  the  requirements  of  established  usage.  "  In 
barbarian  and  savage  communities  the  collective  regulation 
of  life  is  not  less  but  greater  than  it  is  in  the  civilized  state. 
The  bounds  that  may  not  be  overstepped  are  narrow  and 
dread.  Immemorial  custom  is  inflexible,  and  half  of  all 
the  possible  joys  of  existence  are  forbidden  and  taboo."  * 
The  selective  influence  of  social  pressure  was  to  eliminate 
all  who  varied  far  from  the  type  *  demanded  by  the  actual 
superstitions  and  prejudices.  Time  and  again  some  varia- 
tion in  the  direction  of  refinement  and  sympathy  must  have 
been  crushed  out,  so  that  the  rude,  the  coarse,  the  unintel- 
lectual,  who  bowed  before  tradition,  might  survive.     This 

*  Giddings,  "  Social   Self-Control,"  Political  Science  Quarterly,  vol. 
xxiv,  no.  4,  December,  1909. 

'  Bagehot,  Physics  and  Politics,  p.  102-104. 

'  Giddings,  op.  cit. 

*  Ibid, 


34  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [294 

meant  the  selection  and  multiplication  of  the  ignorant, 
superstitious,  and  the  unintellectual.  The  refined  variate, 
if  he  survived  the  rigors  of  selection  by  physical  environ- 
ment, was  none  the  less  surely  subjected  to  the  fatal  pressure 
of  established  usage. 

Where  the  aspects  of  nature  were  harsh  and  where  the 
bare  necessities  of  life  were  scarce,  there  mere  survival  was 
difficult.  But  the  terrible  struggle  for  mere  survival  had, 
as  a  by-product,  a  net  of  tradition  which  bound  the  intellect. 
The  finer  variations,  always  more  nervously  unstable  than 
the  tougher  sort,  were  usually  crushed  out.  If  they  sur- 
vived, their  response  to  violent  stimulation  was  so  harsh 
and  racking  that  it  destroyed  them,  or  removed  them  from 
the  world  of  men.  This  perhaps  is  the  explanation  of  the 
praying  men  of  India,  of  the  hermit  and  the  monk. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  the  pressure  of  physical  en- 
vironment was  not  so  violent,  a  less  brutal  type  was  found. 
The  selective  influence  of  milder  customs  and  traditions  cor- 
responding to  a  more  refined  stimulation,  was  to  choose  for 
approval  and  survival  the  refined  and  intelligent. 


CHAPTER  III 
Education  Conserves  the  Mores 

In  civilized  society  we  have  become  accustomed  to  think 
of  Law,  Rahgion,  Art,  Education,  Music,  and  War,  as  dis- 
tinct fields  of  human  activity.  In  primitive  society  these 
lines  of  endeavor  are  not  differentiated.  Life  is  a  mixed 
and  confused  combination  of  all  these  things.  The  process 
of  securing  conformity  by  new  generations  to  ancient  lore 
and  established  usage,  is  not  thought  of  as  a  special  activity 
bearing  its  own  justification.  All  that  the  primitive  man 
knows  about  the  matter,  is  that  from  time  immemorial  the 
one  demand  of  his  parents  and  remoter  ancestors  has  been 
that  he  subordinate  his  thoughts  and  acts  to  the  precepts  of 
tradition,  come  down  from  the  past.  But  besides  his  own 
obedience,  he  must  secure  the  conformity  of  his  children 
to  the  same  rules  and  customs.  The  whole  content  of  an- 
cient usage  must  be  transmitted  to  the  young  through  and 
in  regulations  which  affect  every  minute  detail  of  life. 
Moreover  these  customs  must  be  followed  explicitly  in  every 
act  and  thought.  Any  deviation  from  the  prescribed  usage 
might  bring  down  upon  the  group  a  terrible  and  fearful  re- 
tribution. 

Professor  Giddings  says: 

That  the  dead  uniformity  of  human  conduct  in  savage  and 
barbarian  communities  is  immediately  a  product  of  social  con- 
straint— largely  spontaneous,  imitative  and  unconscious,  but 
also  partly  conscious  and  deliberate  and  only  remotely  and  in- 
directly a  product  of  environmental  constraint,  is  a  fact  too 
295]  35 


36  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [296 

familiar  to  call  for  demonstration.  By  the  conscious  cooper- 
ation of  elders  in  directing  the  rearing  of  children  by  young 
parents,  by  organized  initiation  ceremonies,  by  clan  and  tribal 
councils,  each  new  generation  is  remorselessly  trained  in  those 
beliefs,  habits  and  loyalties  which  the  group  regards  as  vital 
to  its  existence.  ^ 


Since  social  stability  was  bound  up  with  the  conservation 
of  racial  traditions  and  local  customs,  the  young  had  to  be 
instructed  in  all  fearful  and  mysterious  rites  to  the  end 
that  youthful  propensity  to  do  things  differently  from  par- 
ental ways  might  be  curbed.  That  natural  yearning  after 
new  sensation  and  that  spontaneous  reaching-out  for  a  rich 
variety  of  experience  which  characterize  youthful  years, 
were  regarded  by  the  elders  with  grave  distrust.  Primitive 
and  backward  peoples  seem  never  to  have  understood  the 
buoyancy  of  youth  and  consequently  have  always  sought  to 
restrain  and  chasten  it. 

Among  the  most  significant  educational  means  adopted 
by  primitive  peoples  to  assure  continued  observance  of  cus- 
toms and  traditions,  are  initiation  ceremonies.  Their  ob- 
ject is  to  introduce  the  boys  into  the  privileges  of  manhood 
and  into  the  full  life  of  the  group.  At  every  step  they  are 
calculated  to  impress  upon  the  initiate  his  own  ignorance 
and  helplessness  in  contrast  with  the  wisdom  and  power 
of  the  group.  The  mystery  with  which  they  are  conducted 
inculcates  reverence  for  the  elders  and  the  authorities  of  the 
group.  The  recital  of  the  traditions  and  the  performances 
of  the  tribe,  the  long  series  of  ritual  acts,  common  partici- 
pation in  the  mystic  dance  and  song  and  decorations,  serve 
to  reenforce  the  ties  that  bind  the  tribe. 

The  following  selections  from  Howitt's  Native  Tribes  of 

1"  Social   Self  Control." 


297]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  37 

South-East  Australia,  will  serve  to  illustrate  this  sort  of 
educational  process:  ♦ 

The  women  and  children  being  thus  driven  together,  the  old 
men  proceeded  to  draw  from  them  those  boys  who  were  con- 
sidered to  be  ripe  for  initiation.  The  old  men  pointed  out 
those  who  were  to  be  taken,  and  their  Kabos  seized  them  and 

placed  them  in  the  front  rank  of  the  women.  .  .  . 

****** 

The  duty  of  the  Kabos  is  to  take  charge  of  the  boys  during 
the  ceremonies.  .  .  . 

The  intention  of  all  that  is  done  at  this  ceremony  is  to  make 
a  momentous  change  in  the  boy's  life;  the  past  is  to  be  cut 
off  from  him  by  a  gulf  which  he  can  never  re-pass.  His  con- 
nection with  his  mother  as  her  child  is  broken  off,  and  he 
becomes  henceforth  attached  to  the  men.  All  the  sports  and 
games  of  his  boyhood  are  to  be  abandoned  with  the  severance 
of  the  old  domestic  ties  between  himself  and  his  mother  and 
sisters.  He  is  now  to  be  a  man,  instructed  in  and  sensible  of 
the  duties  which  devolve  upon  him  as  a  member  of  the  Murr- 
ing  community.  To  do  all  this  is  partly  the  object  of  the  cere- 
monies, and  the  process  by  which  this  is  reached  is  a  singular 
one.  The  ceremonies  are  intended  to  impress  and  terrify  the 
boy  in  such  a  manner  that  the  lesson  may  be  indelible,  and 
may  govern  the  whole  of  his  future  life.  But  the  intention 
is  also  to  amuse  in  the  intervals  of  the  serious  rites. 

The  ceremonies,  therefore,  are  marked  by  what  may  be 
called  major  and  minor  stages,  and  the  intervals  are  filled 
in  by  magic  dances,  by  amusing  interludes  and  buffoonery,  in 
which  all  the  men  take  part,  excepting  the  Kabos,  whose  duty 
is  to  unceasingly  explain  and  admonish  during  the  whole  cere- 
mony; to  point  the  moral  and  adorn  the  tale.  .  .  . 

****** 

The  ceremonies  are  also  intended  to  rivet  the  influence  and 
power  of  the  old  men  on  the  novices,  who  have  heard  from 
their  earliest  childhood  tales  of  the   fearful  powers  of  the 


38  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [298 

Gommeras,  and  of  the  Jo'ias  by  which  they  can  cause  sickness 
and  death.     At  these  ceremonies  the  Jo'ias  are  exhibited. 

*  *  *  *  sie  H« 

.  .  .  The  medicine  man  then  hops  backwards  and  forwards 
with  a  staring  expression  of  face,  his  head  vibrates  from  side 
to  side,  and  he  suddenly  shows,  sometimes  after  apparently 
internal  struggles,  one  of  his  Joias  between  his  teeth.  This 
is  supposed  to  have  been  brought  from  within  himself.  The 
other  men  are  meantime  dancing  round  him,  and  I  have  occa- 
sionally seen  him  work  himself  into  a  kind  of  ecstatic  frenzy, 
and  fall  down,  once  almost  into  the  fire,  utterly  exhausted. 
While  this  was  going  on,  the  Kahos  spoke  in  earnest  tones  to 
their  boys,  explaining  to  them  the  great  and  deadly  powers  of 
the  Gommeras,  and  the  necessity  of  their  obeying  every  in- 
struction given  them  .  .  . 

'r  •1*  'P  *1^  T*  *!* 

.  .  .  and  the  boy's  eyes  being  still  covered,  .  .  .  Yibai- 
malian  now  came  forward  in  his  character  of  a  great  medi- 
cine man,  and  first  of  all  gave  the  tooth  a  tremendous  hoist 
with  his  lower  jaw,  then  he  put  his  mouth  to  that  of  the  boy, 
who  made  a  tremendous  struggle,  and  got  his  arms  free. 
Yibai  told  me  afterwards  that  he  then  forced  one  of  his  Jo'ias, 
a  quartz  crystal,  up  against  the  tooth  to  loosen  it.  The  boy, 
feehng  this  hard  substance  coming  out  of  the  medicine-man's 
mouth,  thought,  as  he  afterwards  told  his  Kaho,  that  the  man 
was  going  to  kill  him  by  something  out  of  his  inside.  .  .  . 

As  soon  as  the  boy  was  soothed  down,  the  Gommera  danced 
in  again  and  succeeded  in  getting  in  a  good  blow  which  knocked 
the  tooth  out.    He  struck  thirteen  blows  in  all.  ^ 

Among  the  tribes  of  Central  Australia  initiation  cere- 
monies are  regarded  as  so  important  a  means  of  trans- 
mitting the  traditions  of  the  tribe,  that  the  whole  tribe 
devotes  itself  for  three  months  together  to  these  elaborate 
functions.  The  education  of  the  Australian  boy  includes 
three  sets  of  ceremonies.  When  the  boy  has  reached  the 
^  Pp.  530-533,  535,  and  542. 


299]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  39 

age  of  ten  or  twelve  the  first  ceremony  of  "  throwing  up  in 
the  air  "  is  performed.  Then  his  nose  is  bored  for  a  nose- 
ring. Three  or  four  years  later  more  formidable  cere- 
monies are  undertaken.  These  rites  last  ten  days,  during 
which  the  boy  must  not  speak  except  to  answer  questions. 
He  is  pledged  to  secrecy  concerning  all  that  he  sees  and 
hears.  He  is  impressed  with  the  importance  of  obeying  the 
tribal  precepts  and  learns  reverence  for  the  superiority  of 
the  old  men.  At  the  age  of  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  a 
still  more  impressive  series  of  ceremonies  is  conducted 
which  often  lasts  for  several  months.  In  this  period  there 
are  dances  and  the  churinga  or  sacred  emblems  are  ex- 
hibited. Ceremonies  imitating  various  totem  animals  are 
performed.  The  young  man  is  made  to  feel  his  importance 
and  responsibility  in  this  initiation  into  all  the  mysteries  of 
the  clan.  The  feeling  of  reverence  which  is  inculcated  for 
the  old  men  and  the  sense  of  pride  at  the  possession  of  all 
this  mysterious  knowledge,  tends  to  develop  a  deeper  sense 
of  unity  and  tribe  cohesion.* 

"  Let  us  not  forget  that  the  immemorial  device  of  sta- 
tionary societies  to  preserve  their  ancient  order  has  been  to 
steep  the  young  in  certain  traditional  wisdom."  ^  The  pur- 
pose of  early  education  in  Egypt,  India,  China,  Israel 
was  the  shaping  of  human  pulp  in  rigid  traditional  mould. 
The  reconciliation  of  order  with  progress  was  not  under- 
stood or  discussed.  The  method  of  education,  therefore, 
was  so  to  hypnotize  the  young  with  ancient  lore,  that  plas- 
ticity of  intellect  would  be  destroyed.  The  free  exercise  of 
the  mind  on  religious,  ethical,  or  political  matters  was  made 
impossible.  Youth  was  to  be  stung  and  paralyzed  with  tra- 
dition, "  thrown  into  a  mental  catalepsy  by  exclusive  contact 

*  Spencer  and  Gillen,  The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia,  chs. 
vii-ix. 
'■^  Ross,  Social  Control  (New  York,  1910),  p.  165. 


40  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [300 

with  sacred  books  and  classics,  edited,  interpreted,  and, 
perhaps,  even  doctored  by  a  priestly  caste."  ^  For  thou- 
sands of  years  the  learning  by  rote  of  sacred  books  and 
laws  was  justly  deemed  of  great  effect  in  fixing  habits  of 
thought  and  moulding  character.  Thus  saith  the  Institutes 
of  Menu! 

10.  By  Srutij  or  what  was  heard  from  above,  is  meant  the 

Veda;  and  by  Smriti,  or  what  was  remembered  from  the 
beginning,  the  body  of  law :  those  two  must  not  be  op- 
pugned by  heterodox  arguments;  since  from  those  two^ 
proceeds  the  whole  system  of  duties. 

11.  Whenever  man  of  the  three  highest  classes,  having  ad- 

dicted himself  to  heretical  books,  shall  treat  with  con- 
tempt those  two  roots  of  law,  he  must  be  driven,  as  an 
Atheist  and  a  scorner  of  revelation,  from  the  company 
of  the  virtuous. 

12.  The  scripture,  the  codes  of  law,  approved  usage,  and,  in 

all  indifferent  cases,  s.elf -satis  faction,  the  wise  have 
openly  declared  to  be  the  quadruple  description  of  the 
juridical  system. 

12.  A  knowledge  of  right  is  sufficient  incentive  for  men  un- 
attached to  wealth  or  to  sensuality;  and  to  those  who 
seek  a  knowledge  of  right,  the  supreme  authority  is  di- 
vine revelation. 

14.  But,  when  there  are  two  sacred  texts,  apparently  incon- 
sistent, both  are  held  to  be  law ;  for  both  are  pronounced 
by  the  wise  to  be  valid  and  reconcilable.^ 

Thus  the  aim  and  the  effect  of  early  education  were  to 
make  men  torpid  and  peaceable  by  making  them  resigned. 
They  were  to  accept  the  social  system  as  they  accepted  the 
order  of  nature.  Law  and  religion  were  to  be  clothed  with 
such  prestige  that  the  individual  should  be  unable  to  see 
over  or  around  them  but  should  bow  the  head  submissively. 

^  Ross,  op.  cit.,  p.  169. 

2  The  Institutes  of  Menu,  vol.  ii,  ch.  ii,  pp.  21-22,  Jones  translation.. 


30l]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  41 

Professor  Paul  Monroe  characterizes  primitive  education 
as  non-progressive  adjustment  and  oriental  education  as 
recapitulation.^  Certainly  Chinese  education  exemplifies  re- 
capitulation. Tlie  careful  regulation  of  the  most  minute 
details  of  life  in  the  Li-Ki,  or  Book  of  Rites,  of  the  Con- 
fucian text,  is  one  of  the  best  examples  of  the  overreaching 
of  precedent.  And  as  it  formed  a  part  of  Chinese  education, 
it  is  one  of  the  clearest  illustrations  of  how  education  con- 
serves tradition  and  custom. 

1.  The  sovereign  and  king  orders  the  chief  minister  to  send 
down  his  (lessons  of)  virtue  to  the  millions  of  the  people. 

2.  Sons,  in  serving  their  parents,  on  the  first  crowing  of  the 
cock,  should  all  wash  their  hands,  and  rinse  their  mouths,  comb 
their  hair,  draw  over  it  the  covering  of  silk,  fix  this  with  the 
hair-pin,  bind  the  hair  at  the  roots  with  the  fillet,  brush  the  dust 
from  that  which  is  left  free,  and  then  put  on  their  caps,  leav- 
ing the  ends  of  the  strings  hanging  down.  They  should  then 
put  on  their  squarely  made  black  jackets,  knee-covers,  and 
girdles,  fixing  in  the  last  their  tablets.  From  the  left  and 
right  of  the  girdle  they  should  hang  their  articles  for  use: — 
on  the  left  side,  the  duster  and  handkerchief,  the  knife  and 
whetstone,  the  small  spike  and  the  metal  speculum  for  getting 
fire  from  the  sun ;  on  the  right,  the  archer's  thimble  for  the 
thumb  and  the  armlet,  the  tube  for  writing  instruments,  the 
knife  case,  the  large  spike,  and  the  borer  for  getting  fire  from 
wood.  They  should  put  on  their  leggings  and  adjust  their 
shoe-strings.* 

Even  in  the  enlightened  period  of  Greek  civilization  edu- 
cation largely  performed  the  function  of  perpetuating  cer- 
tain traditions  and  customs.  "  In  Sparta  the  state  was  a 
great  educational  institution,  and  warrior-citizens  were  de- 

*  Monroe,    Text-Book    in    the   History    of   Education    (New   York, 
190S),  pp.  1-20. 
'  Miiller,  Sacred  Books  of  the  Mast,  vol.  xxvii,  p.  449. 


42  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [302 

liberately  turned  out  according  to  pattern."  ^  The  national 
existence  of  Sparta  depended  so  entirely  on  the  military 
effectiveness  of  her  citizens,  that  Sparta  was  practically  a 
military  camp  organized  for  the  training  of  warriors.  The 
chief  occupation  of  adults,  apart  from  their  military  life, 
was  the  education  of  the  younger  generation.  Although 
training  was  narrow  and  intense  it  produced  high  and  per- 
manent results.  Beyond  the  practical  military  training,  in- 
tellectual education  consisted  in  committing  to  memory  the 
Laws  of  Lycurgus,  which  had  been  handed  down  from  one 
generation  to  another  in  verbal  form  for  many  centuries. 
Then  came  the  learning  of  the  national  hymns  and  choruses, 
and  later  the  poems  of  a  few  writers,  held  in  repute.^  In 
short,  education  in  as  far  as  it  was  intellectual,  consisted 
merely  in  the  perpetuation  of  warlike  traditions.  And, 
like  most  earlier  educational  processes  and  many  modern 
ones,  the  eulogistic  recounting  of  past  successes  was  an  im- 
portant element.    Plutarch  tells  us: 

Neither  were  poetry  and  music  less  cultivated  among  them 
than  a  concise  dignity  of  expression.  Their  songs  had  a  spirit 
which  .could  rouse  the  soul,  and  impel  it  in  an  enthusiastic 
manner  to  action.  The  language  was  plain  and  manly,  the  sub- 
ject serious  and  moral.  For  they  consisted  chiefly  of  the 
praises  of  heroes  that  had  died  for  Sparta,  or  else  of  expres- 
sions of  detestation  for  such  wretches  as  had  declined  the 
glorious  opportunity,  and  rather  chose  to  drag  on  life  in 
misery  and  contempt.  Nor  did  they  forget  to  express  an  am- 
bition for  glory  suitable  to  their  respective  ages.^ 

In  the  more  enlightened  and  progressive  civilization  of 

*  Ross,  op.  cit.,  p.  169. 

2  Monroe,  Source  Book  of  the  History  of  Education  for  the  Greek 
and  Roman  Period  (New  York,  1901)    pp.  Q-H- 
^  Life  of  Lycurgus,  Langhome  translation,  p.  206. 


303]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  43 

Athens,  the  intellectual  or  rational  element  still  had  rela- 
tively little  place.  The  music  schools  were  the  chief  means 
by  which  the  state  sought  to  inculcate  reverence  for  the  old 
myths  and  legends.  The  study  of  ancient  lore  and  sacred 
tradition  formed  the  basis  of  the  mental  work  in  the  music 
schools.  It  was  not  intellectual  power,  but  reverence,  loy- 
alty and  temperance  in  every  word  and  action  that  was  de- 
manded.^ Plato's  account  of  the  speech  of  Protagoras  on 
the  "  Teaching  of  Morals,"  describes  how  reverence,  loy- 
alty, and  temperance  can  be  secured  by  training  the  boy  in 
a  spirit  of  respect  for  the  old  myths  and  legends : 

At  a  later  stage  they  send  him  to  teachers,  and  enjoin  them 
to  see  to  his  manners  even  more  than  to  his  reading  and  music ; 
and  the  teachers  do  as  they  are  desired.  And  when  the  boy 
has  learned  his  letters  and  is  beginning  to  understand  what 
is  written,  as  before  he  understood  only  what  was  spoken, 
they  put  into  his  hands  the  works  of  great  poets,  which  he 
reads  sitting  on  a  bench  at  school ;  in  these  are  contained  many 
admonitions,  and  many  tales,  and  praises,  and  encomia  of 
ancient  famous  men,  which  he  is  required  to  learn  by  heart, 
in  order  that  he  may  imitate  or  emulate  them  and  desire  to 
become  like  them.  Then,  again,  the  teachers  of  the  lyre  take 
similar  care  that  their  young  disciple  is  temperate  and  gets 
into  no  mischief ;  and  when  they  have  taught  him  the  use  of 
the  lyre,  they  introduce  him  to  the  poems  of  other  excellent 
poets,  who  are  lyric  poets :  and  these  they  set  to  music,  .  .  ." 

The  Athenian  boy  spent  most  of  his  time  not  given  to  the 
palaestra  in  these  music  schools.  Here  the  earlier  years  of 
his  childhood  were  devoted  to  memorizing  the  Homeric 
poems,  with  the  addition  of  portions  of  Hesiod,  and,  later 

^  Monroe,  Source  Book,  p.  14- 

-  The  Protagoras.  Jowett  trans.,  vol.  i,  p.  147,  3rd  ed. 


44  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [304 

in  the  historic  period^  selections  from  the  lyric  and  didactic 
poets.  A  few  years  were  devoted  to  the  mastery  of  this 
literature,  wherein  the  early  ideals  of  Greek  life  are  ex- 
pressed in  a  form  that  had  imperishable  influence  upon 
each  succeeding  goneration.  The  boy  was  then  instructed  in 
the  correct  method  of  chanting  these  poems  to  an  accom- 
paniment on  the  lyre/ 

At  the  close  of  the  Persian  Wars  the  mores  of  the  people 
were  changing,  and  with  the  advent  of  a  new  education  the 
old  national  songs  and  the  Homeric  poems  were  replaced  by 
the  newer  literature  of  a  reflective  and  didactic  character.^ 
The  conflict  between  the  old  and  the  new  education  consti- 
tuted a  problem,  the  solution  of  which  Plato  intimated 
might  be  found  in  the  formation  of  a  new  state  based  on 
Justice.*  In  the  development  of  this  scheme  Plato  is  first 
to  demonstrate  the  waste  engendered  by  an  educational 
process  which  consisted  largely  in  the  conservation  of  an- 
cient lore  and  poetic  legend.    He  says : 

Shall  we  then  permit  our  children  without  scruple  to  hear 
any  fables  composed  by  any  authors  indifferently,  and  so  to 
receive  into  their  minds  opinions  generally  the  reverse  of 
those  which,  when  they  are  grown  to  manhood,  we  shall  think 
they  ought  to  entertain? 

****** 

Then  apparently  our  first  duty  will  be  to  exercise  a  super- 
intendence over  the  authors   of   fables,  selecting  their  good 
productions   and  rejecting  the  bad.  .  .  .  But  we  shall  have 
to  repudiate  the  greater  part  of  those  which  are  now  in  vogue. 
****** 

1  mean  the  stories  which  Hesoid,  and  Homer,  and  the  other 

^  Monroe,  History  of  Education,  pp.  90-91. 

2  Monroe,  Source  Book,  pp.  Si-SQ. 
*  The  Republic. 


305]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  45 

poets,  tell  us.     For  they,  I  imagine,  have  composed  fictitious 
narratives  which  they  told,  and  yet  tell,  to  men. 

What  is  this  fault? 

It  is  whenever  an  author  gives  a  bad  re^jresentation  of  the 
characters  of  gods  and  heroes,  like  a  painter  whose  picture 
should  bear  no  resemblance  to  the  objects  he  wishes  to  imi- 
tate. 

♦  ♦***♦ 

Not  yet,  I  continued,  is  it  proper  to  say  in  any  case — what 
is  indeed  untrue — that  gods  wage  war  against  gods,  and  in- 
trigue and  fight  among  themselves ;  that  is,  if  the  future  guar- 
dians of  our  state  are  to  deem  it  a  most  disgraceful  thing  to 
quarrel  lightly  with  one  another:  far  less  ought  we  to  select 
as  subjects  for  fiction  and  embroidery,  the  battles  of  the  giants, 
and  numerous  other  feuds  of  all  sorts,  in  which  gods  and 
heroes  fight  against  their  own  kith  and  kin.  But  if  there  is 
any  possibility  of  persuading  them,  that  to  quarrel  with  one's 
fellow  is  a  sin  of  which  no  member  of  a  state  was  ever  guilty, 
such  ought  rather  to  be  the  language  held  to  our  children  from 
the  first,  by  old  men  and  old  women,  and  all  elderly  persons : 
and  such  is  the  strain  in  which  our  poets  must  be  compelled 
to  write.  But  stories  like  the  chaining  of  Hera  by  her  son, 
and  the  flinging  of  Hephaestus  out  of  heaven  for  trying  to  take 
his  mother's  part  when  his  father  was  beating  her,  and  all 
those  battles  of  the  gods  which  are  to  be  found  in  Homer, 
must  be  refused  admittance  into  our  state,  whether  they  be 
allegorical  or  not.  For  the  child  cannot  discriminate  between 
what  is  allegory  and  what  is  not;  and  whatever  at  that  age  is 
adopted  as  a  matter  of  belief,  has  a  tendency  to  become  fixed 
and  indelible,  and  therefore,  perhaps,  we  ought  to  esteem  it 
of  the  greatest  importance  that  the  fictions  which  children  first 
hear  should  be  adapted  in  the  most  perfect  manner  to  {.he  pro- 
motion of  virtue.^ 

*  The  Republic  of  Plato,  bk.  ii,  pp.  65-67,  in  The  Golden  Treasury 
Series. 


46  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [306 

Plato  clung  to  the  belief  that  music  should  be  taught  in 
the  old  Greek  sense  for  training  in  reverence  and  a  rigid 
system  of  morals,  but  he  contended  that  both  music  and  lit- 
erature should  be  closely  supervised  and  censored  by  ration- 
alistic standards  by  state  officials/  This  is  perhaps  one  of 
the  first  criticisms  of  the  traditional  Greek  education  which 
bases  its  objection  upon  rational  grounds. 

But  in  his  later  vi^orks,  Plato  slips  back  into  the  old  point 
of  view.  Reinforcing  the  conservatism  of  age,  the  disap- 
pointments which  he  had  suffered  contributed  to  reestablish 
in  his  mind  those  traditional  sanctions  which  had  been  in 
abeyance;  and  in  The  Laws  Plato  does  not  disguise  his  ad- 
miration for  the  intolerant  Egyptian  education: 

Long  ago  they  appear  to  have  recognized  the  very  principle 
of  which  we  are  now  speaking — that  their  young  citizens  must 
be  habituated  to  forms  and  strains  of  virtue.  These  they 
fixed,  and  exhibited  the  patterns  of  them  in  their  temples; 
and  no  painter  or  artist  is  allowed  to  innovate  upon  them,  or 
to  leave  the  traditional  forms  and  invent  new  ones.  To  this 
day,  no  alteration  is  allowed  either  in  these  arts,  or  in  the 
music  at  all.  And  you  find  that  their  works  of  art  are  painted 
or  moulded  in  the  same  forms  which  they  had  ten  thousand 
years  ago; — this  is  literally  true  and  no  exaggeration, — their 
ancient  paintings  and  sculptures  are  not  a  whit  better  or  worse 
than  the  work  of  to-day,  but  are  made  with  just  the  same 
skill.  ... 

.  .  .  How  statesmanlike,  how  worthy  of  a  legislator!  I 
know  that  other  things  in  Egypt  are  not  so  well.  But  what  I 
am  telling  you  about  music  is  true  and  deserving  of  considera- 
tion, because  showing  that  a  law  giver  may  institute  melodies 
which  have  a  natural  truth  and  correctness  without  any  fear 
of  failure.  .  .  .  For  the  love  of  novelty  which  arises  out  of 
pleasure  in  the  new  ind  weariness  of  the  old,  has  not  strength 
enough  to  corrupt  the  consecrated  song  and  dance,  under  the 

*  Monroe,  History  of  Education,  p.  136. 


307]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  47 

plea  that  they  have  become  antiquated.  At  any  rate,  they  are 
far  from  being  corrupted  in  Egypt.^ 

In  another  passage,  still  eulogizing  the  Egyptian  type  of 
education,  Plato  points  out  how  the  risk  of  innovation 
should  be  guarded  against.  And  here  he  relapses  into  as 
complete  an  acceptance  of  the  traditional  doctrine  of  rever- 
ence for  antiquity  and  of  the  desirability  of  perpetuating 
that  reverence  by  educational  means,  as  it  is  possible  to  find. 
He  says : 

For  when  they  have  been  brought  up  in  certain  laws,  which 
by  some  Divine  Providence  have  remained  unchanged  during 
long  ages,  so  that  no  one  has  any  memory  or  tradition  of  their 
ever  having  been  otherwise  than  they  are,  then  every  one  is 
afraid  and  ashamed  to  change  that  which  is  established.  The 
legislator  must  somehow  find  a  way  of  implanting  this  rever- 
ence for  antiquity,  and  I  would  propose  the  following  way : — 
People  are  apt  to  fancy,  as  I  was  saying  before,  that  when 
the  plays  o?  children  are  altered  they  are  merely  plays,  not 
seeing  that  the  most  serious  and  detrimental  consequences 
arise  out  of  the  change;  and  they  readily  comply  with  the 
child's  wishes  instead  of  deterring  him,  not  considering  that 
these  children  who  make  innovations  in  their  games,  when 
they  grow  up  to  be  men  will  be  different  from  the  last  gen- 
eration of  children,  and,  being  different,  will  desire  a  differ- 
ent sort  of  life,  and  under  the  influence  of  this  desire  will 
want  other  institutions  and  laws ;  and  no  one  of  them  reflects 
that  there  will  follow  what  I  just  now  called  the  greatest  of 
evils  to  states.  Changes  in  bodily  fashions  are  no  such  ser- 
ious evils,  but  frequent  changes  in  the  praise  and  censure  of 
manners  are  the  greatest  of  evils,  and  require  the  utmost  pre- 
vision.* 

Then,  in  the  same  passage  Plato  continues  to  say  that 

*  The  Laws,  bk.  ii,  pp.  34-3S,  Jowctt  trans.,  3rd.  ed. 

*  Ibid.,  bk.  vii,  p.  179. 


48  EDUCATION  AND.  THE  MORES  [308 

there  is  no  better  mode  of  effecting  the  desired  object  than 
by  emulation  of  the  Egyptians,  for : 

To  consecrate  every  sort  of  dance  or  melody.  First  we  should 
ordain  festivals, — calculating  for  the  year  what  they  ought 
to  be,  and  at  what  time,  and  in  honor  of  what  Gods,  sons  of 
Gods,  and  heroes,  they  ought  to  be  celebrated ;  and,  in  the  next 
place,  what  hymns  ought  to  be  sung  at  the  several  sacrifices, 
and  with  what  dances  the  particular  festival  is  to  be  honored. 
This  has  to  be  arranged  at  first  by  certain  persons,  and,  when 
arranged,  the  whole  assembly  of  the  citizens,  are  to  offer  sac- 
rifices and  libations  to  the  Fates  and  all  the  other  Gods,  and 
to  consecrate  the  several  odes  to  Gods  and  heroes :  and  if  any 
one  offers  any  other  hymns  or  dances  to  any  one  of  the  Gods, 
the  priests  and  priestesses,  acting  in  concert  with  the  guardians 
of  the  law,  shall,  with  the  sanction  of  religion  and  law  ex- 
clude him,  and  he  who  is  excluded,  if  he  do  not  submit,  shall 
be  liable  all  his  life  long  to  have  a  suit  of  impiety  brought 
against  him  by  any  one  who  likes.^ 

It  is  indicative  of  the  importance  of  education  in  Grecian 
thought  that  it  should  form  a  definite  part  of  the  science 
of  politics.  Aristotle  recognizes  the  desirability  of  having 
the  young  trained  in  the  spirit  of  the  law. 

But  of  all  things  which  I  have  mentioned  that  which  most 
contributes  to  the  permanence  of  constitutions  is  the  adapta- 
tion of  education  to  the  form  of  government.  .  .  .  The  best 
laws  though  sanctioned  by  every  citizen  of  the  state,  will  be  of 
no  avail  unless  the  young  are  trained  by  habit  and  education 
in  the  spirit  of  the  constitution.  .  .  .^ 

No  one  will  doubt  that  the  legislator  should  direct  his  atten- 
tion above  all  to  the  education  of  youth,  or  that  the  neglect  of 
education  does  harm  to  states.    The  citizen  should  be  moulded 

^  The  Laws,  bk.  vii,  p.  180. 

^  Politics,  bk.  V,  pp.  168-169,  Jowett  trans. 


309]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  49 

to  suit  the  form  of  government  under  which  he  Hves.  For  each 
government  has  a  pecuUar  character  which  originally  found 
and  which  continues  to  preserve  it.^ 

The  Directors  of  Education,  as  they  are  termed,  should  be 
careful  what  tales  or  stories  the  children  hear,  for  the  sports 
of  children  are  designed  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  business 
of  later  life,  and  should  be  for  the  most  part  imitations  of  the 
occupations  which  they  will  hereafter  pursue  in  earnest.^ 

At  a  later  period  we  find  in  a  decree  from  the  Athenian 
Senate  that  the  Ephebi  have  been  diligent  in  their  adherence 
to  the  prescribed  and  traditional  element  in  their  education. 

.  .  .  and  have  been  regular  in  their  attendance  all  the  year 
at  the  gymnasia,  and  punctually  obeyed  their  Rector,  thinking 
it  of  paramount  importance  to  observe  discipline,  and  to  study 
diligently  what  the  people  has  prescribed ;  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Whereas  the  People  always  has  a  hearty  interest  in  the 
learning  and  the  discipline  of  the  Ephebi,  hoping  that  the  ris- 
ing generation  may  grow  up  to  be  men  able  to  take  good  care 
of  their  fatherland,  and  has  passed  laws  to  require  them  to 
gain  a  knowledge  of  the  country.  .  .  .^ 

If  progressive  adjustment  and  liberality  were  the  watch- 
words of  Greek  education,  practical  training  was  surely  the 
aim  of  Roman  education.  The  standards  which  the  Roman 
youth  was  expected  to  approximate  were  set  by  living  men 
of  distinction,  or  by  well-known  historical  personages.  Al- 
though the  characteristics  of  these  types  set  up  no  exalted 
ideal,  they  at  least  were  models  worthy  of  imitation 
exemplifying  the  practical  virtues  of  a  vigorous,  successful 
people.     These  qualities  appeared  in  the  personal  traits  of 

1  Politics,  bk.  vii,  p.  244. 
'  Ibid.,  bk.  vii,  p.  241. 

3  Dumont,  Essai  sur  L'  flphebie  Attique,  Cape's  translation,  Univef' 
sity  Life  in  Ancient  Athens,  p.  21    et  seq. 


50  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [310 

the  national  heroes  exalted  in  the  national  legends  and  the 
poems  of  the  later  literature/ 

Horace  recognized  the  distinction  between  the  ideals  of 
Greek  and  Roman  education :  "  The  Greeks  had  genius, 
the  Greeks  could  speak  with  well-rounded  mouth:  this  was 
the  muse's  gift  to  them;  they  coveted  naught  but  renown. 
But  the  Roman  boys  are  taught  to  divide  the  as  by  long 
calculations  into  a  hundred  parts."  " 

The  Laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables  were  the  basis  of  instruc- 
tion in  reading,  writing,  and  literary  work,  for  centuries. 
In  the  early  period  they  were  taught  at  home  and  later  in 
the  schools  when  these  were  established.  Besides  form- 
ing the  most  important  part  of  the  subject-matter  of  early 
literary  education,  the  Laws  also  expressed  the  ideals  which 
dominated  it.^  Roman  education  like  all  that  had  gone 
before  was  the  process  of  conserving  traditions. 

Cicero  was  profuse  in  his  praise  of  the  Laws  of  the 
Twelve  Tables  as  representing  all  that  was  desirable  as 
material  for  intellectual  education: 

Though  all  the  world  exclaim  against  me,  I  will  say  what  I 
think :  that  single  little  book  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  if  any  one 
look  at  the  fountains  and  sources  of  laws,  seems  to  me,  as- 
suredly, to  surpass  the  libraries  of  all  philosophers,  both  in 
weight  of  authority,  and  in  the  plentitude  of  utility.  ...  Its 
spirit,  customs,  and  discipline  ought  to  be  our  first  objects  of 
study,  both  because  our  country  is  the  parent  of  us  all,  and 
because  as  much  wisdom  must  be  thought  to  have  been  em- 
ployed in  framing  such  laws,  as  in  establishing  so  vast  and 
powerful  an  empire.* 

^  Monroe,  History  of  Education,  p.  183. 

^  Ars  Poetica,  323-333,  p.  214,  Lonsdale  and  Lee  prose  trans. 

^  Monroe,  Source  Book,  p.  33i- 

^  De  Oratore,  bk.  i,  ch.  xliv,  Watson  trans. 


3  1 1  ]  LiDUCA  TIO\'  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  5 1 

Professor  Monroe  finds  that  imitation  is  one  of  the  most 
important  characteristics  of  Roman  education.^  The  method 
of  old  Roman  education  was  essentially  that  of  the  ap- 
prentice system.  The  youth  learned  by  observation  and  di- 
rect imitation  of  the  master,  in  the  army,  at  the  farm,  and 
in  the  courts  of  the  forum.  Besides  the  mastering  of  the 
Twelve  Tables  and  various  exercises  in  calculation,  literary 
education  included  the  acquisition  of  national  hymns  and 
legends.-  The  traditional  element  had  the  dominant  place 
as  usual  in  intellectual  training. 

Roman  educational  history  may  be  divided  into  two  great 
periods :  one,  wherein  its  ideas  and  practices  were  all  purely 
Roman ;  the  other,  in  which  the  Greek  influence  was  promi- 
nent and  education  became  of  a  composite  or  cosmopolitan 
character.*^ 

The  rise  of  the  schools  of  the  Latin  Rhetoricians  had  to 
face  the  hostility  of  all  the  old  educational  traditions  and 
customs  in  the  Roman  mores  of  that  time.  Education  con- 
served certain  mores  of  the  people.  The  new  ideas  ap- 
pearing with  the  rise  of  the  rhetorical  schools  occasioned 
suspicion.  Suetonius  writes  of  a  decree  of  the  senate  against 
them  about  161  B.  C. : 

It  is  reported  to  us  that  certain  persons  have  instituted  a 
new  kind  of  discipline ;  that  our  youth  resort  to  their  schools ; 
that  they  have  assumed  the  title  of  Latin  Rhetoricians;  and 
that  young  men  waste  their  time  there  for  whole  days  together. 
Our  ancestors  have  ordained  what  instruction  it  is  fitting  their 
children  to  receive,  and  what  schools  they  should  attend. 
These  novelties,  contrary  to  the  customs  and  instructions  of 
our  ancestors,  we  neither  approve,  nor  do  they  appear  to  us 

*  Monroe,  History  of  Education,  p.  189. 

2  Monroe,  Source  Book,  p.  359. 

'  Monroe,  History  of  Education,  p.  191. 


52  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [312 

good.  Wherefore  it  appears  to  be  our  duty  that  we  should 
notify  our  judgment  both  to  those  who  keep  such  schools,  and 
those  who  are  in  the  practice  of  frequenting  them,  that  they 
meet  our  disapprobation/ 

However,  by  slow  degrees,  rhetoric  manifested  itself  to  be 
a  useful  and  honorable  study,  and  many  persons  devoted  them- 
selves to  it,  both  as  a  means  of  defense  and  of  acquiring  repu- 
tation. ^ 

But  these  new  schools  still  drew  heavily  upon  the  ma- 
terial of  tradition,  for :  "  They  had  occasion  to  support  the 
authority  of  fabulous  accounts,  and  to  detract  from  that  of 
historical  narratives,  which  sort  the  Greeks  call  *  Proposi- 
tions ',  '  Refutations  '  and  *  Corroborations  '."  * 

In  the  looseness  which  characterized  the  mores  of  Roman 
plutocracy,  the  importance  of  conserving  traditions  was  lost 
sight  of.    Plautus  writes : 

.  .  .  clad  in  your  belted  frock,  upon  a  stool  by  your  master 
would  you  sit;  and  there,  when  you  were  reading  your  book, 
if  you  made  a  mistake  in  a  single  syllable,  your  skin  would 
be  made  as  spotted  as  your  nurse's  gown.  .  .  . 

But  now-a-days,  before  he  is  seven  years  old,  if  you  touch 
a  boy  with  your  hand,  at  once  the  child  breaks  his  tutor's 
head  with  his  tablet.* 

But  the  old  Roman  virility  was  continued  into  the  later 
imperial  period  in  the  form  of  Stoic  Philosophy.  Marcus 
Aurelius  is  thankful : 

.  .  .  that  when  I  had  inclination  to  philosophy,  I  did  not 
fall  into  the  hands  of  any  sophists,  and  that  I  did  not  waste 

1  The  Lives  of  Eminent  Rhetoricans,  p.  524  Thomson  trans. 

2  Ihid.,  pp.  524-525. 
'  Ihid.,  p.  525. 

*  The  Bacchides  of  Plautus,  Act  iii,  Sc.  iii,  pp.  173-174,  Riley  trans. 


313]  EDUCATIOX  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  53 

any  time  on  writers  [of  histories]  or  in  the  resolution  of 
syllogisms,  or  occupy  myself  about  the  investigation  of  ap- 
pearances in  the  heavens ;  for  all  these  things  require  the  help 
of  the  gods  and  fortune.^ 

Pliny  the  Younger  writes  of  what  is  desirable  for  an  in- 
strutor  to  teach. 

Your  son  will  hear  nothing  from  this  worthy  man  but  what 
will  be  to  his  advantage  to  know,  nor  will  he  learn  anything 
of  which  it  would  be  better  he  were  ignorant.  He  will  remind 
him  as  often,  and  with  as  much  zeal  as  you  or  I  should,  of  the 
virtues  of  his  ancestors,  and  what  a  glorious  weight  of  illus- 
trious characters  he  has  to  support.^ 

Throughout  all  of  these  selections  we  recognize  the  ele- 
ment of  tradition  and  usage.  The  eulogistic  study  of  the 
past  and  the  resulting  necessity  to  emulate  one's  ancestors 
and  to  follow  in  their  footsteps,  seem  the  motives  of  edu- 
cational policy,  which  is  carried  out  by  requiring  the  new 
generation  to  sing  the  praises  of  the  past  as  embodied  in  the 
poems  and  hymns,  to  learn  the  national  legends  and  myths, 
and  to  observe  the  precepts  of  ancient  lore.  In  this  manner 
a  reverential  attitude  towards  the  past  is  made  a  habit  of 
mind. 

Horace  writes  of  the  substance  of  early  literary  education : 

The  tender  lisping  mouth  of  a  child  the  poet  forms ;  even  in 
their  earlier  days  he  turns  the  ears  of  the  young  from  evil 
words ;  presently  he  fashions  the  heart  by  kindly  precepts ;  he 
is  the  corrector  of  roughness,  of  malice,  of  anger;  he  tells 
of  virtuous  deeds,  the  dawn  of  life  he  furnishes  with  illus- 

^  The  Thoughts  of  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius  Antonius,  ch.  i,  17, 
p.  y7.  Long  trans.,  2nd.  ed. 

2  Epistles  of  Pliny  the  Younger,  bk.  iii,  epistle  iii.  to  Correllia  His- 
pulla,  p.  78,  Bosanquet  trans. 


54  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [314 

trious  examples;  the  helpless  and  sad  of  soul  he  comforts. 
Whence  could  the  pious  boys  and  virgins  learn  their  hymns 
of  prayer,  had  not  the  muse  granted  us  a  bard?  The  chorus 
prays  for  aid,  and  Heaven's  presence  feels,  and  in  set  form  of 
persuasive  prayer  implores  rain  from  above,  averts  disease, 
drives  away  dreaded  dangers,  obtains  peace,  and  a  season 
rich  in  its  crops :  appeased  by  hymns  are  gods  above,  and  gods 
below. ^ 

But  Horace  did  not  accept  all  eulogism: 

When  I  was  little,  Orbilius,  my  master,  dictated  to  me  the 
poems  of  Livius;  he  was  fond  of  flogging  me,  but  I  am  not 
dead  set  against  those  poems,  nor  think  they  ought  to  be  de- 
stroyed :  but  that  they  should  be  considered  faultless  and  beau- 
tiful and  almost  perfect,  does  astonish  me.^ 

When  Rome  became  uneasy  in  the  later  days  of  the  re- 
public and  the  people  regarded  luxury  and  glitter  as  de- 
sirable assets,  the  polished  and  eloquent  orator  became  the 
idealized  educated  Roman.  Like  habits  of  elegance  and 
ease  were  in  the  mores  of  the  classes. 

For  when  our  empire  over  all  nations  was  established,  and 
after  a  period  of  peace  had  secured  tranquillity,  there  was 
scarcely  a  youth  ambitious  of  praise  who  did  not  think  he  must 
strive,  with  all  his  endeavors  to  attain  the  art  of  speaking.^ 

For  who  is  ignorant  that  the  highest  power  of  an  orator  con- 
sists in  exciting  the  minds  of  men  to  anger,  or  to  hatred,  or  to 
grief,  or  in  recalling  them  from  these  more  violent  emotions  to 
gentleness  and  compassion?  Which  power  will  never  be  able 
to  effect  its  object  by  eloquence,  unless  in  him  who  has  ob- 
tained a  thorough  insight  into  the  nature  of  mankind,  and  all 

5  The  Epistles,  bk.  ii,  p.  192,  Lonsdale  and  Lee  trans. 

'  Ihid.,  bk.  ii,  pp.  70-75. 

^  De  Oratore  of  Cicero,  bk.  i,  ch.  iv,  Watson  trans. 


315]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  55 

the  passions  of  humanity,  and  those  causes  by  which  our  minds 
are  either  impelled  or  restrained.^ 

The  poets  must  also  be  studied :  an  acquaintance  must  be 
formed  with  history ;  the  writers  and  teachers  in  all  the  liberal 
arts  and  sciences  must  be  read,  and  turned  over,  and  must,  for 
the  sake  of  exercise,  be  praised,  interpreted,  corrected,  cen- 
sured, refuted ;  you  must  dispute  on  both  sides  of  every  ques- 
tion ;  .  .  .  The  civil  law  must  be  thoroughly  studied,  laws  in 
general  must  be  understood;  all  antiquity  must  be  known;  the 
usages  of  the  senate,  the  nature  of  our  government,  the  rights 
of  our  allies.  .  .  .^ 

Ouintilian  describes  the  formal  institutional  education 
of  the  public  schools  of  a  later  time  and  gives  his  opinion  re- 
garding the  subject-matter  of  elementary  education.*  He 
says : 

I  would  express  a  wish  that  even  the  lines  which  are  set 
him  for  his  imitation  in  writing,  should  not  contain  useless 
sentences,  but  such  as  convey  some  moral  instruction.  The 
remembrance  of  such  admonitions  will  attend  him  to  old  age, 
and  will  be  of  use  even  for  the  formation  of  his  character. 
It  is  possible  for  him,  also,  to  learn  the  sayings  of  eminent  men, 
and  select  passages  from  the  poets  (for  the  reading  of  poets 
is  more  pleasing  to  the  young).* 

It  has  accordingly  been  an  excellent  custom,  that  reading 
should  commence  with  Homer  and  Virgil,  although,  to  under- 
stand their  merits,  there  is  need  of  maturer  judgment.  .  .  . 
In  the  meantime  let  the  mind  of  the  pupil  be  exalted  with  the 
sublimity  of  the  heroic  verse,  conceive  ardor  from  the  magni- 
tude of  the  subjects,  and  be  imbued  with  the  noblest  senti- 
ments. The  reading  of  tragedies  is  beneficial ;  the  lyric  poets 
nourish  the  mind,  provided  you  select  from  them,  not  merely 

^  De  Oratore  of  Cicero,  bk.  i,  ch.  xii. 

2  Ibid.,  bk.  i,  ch.  xxxiv. 

'  Monroe,  Source  Book,  pp.  448-449. 

*  Institutes  of  Oratory,  bk.  i.  ch.  i,  35-36,  Watson  trans. 


56  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [316 

authors,  but  portions  of  their  works ;  for  the  Greeks  are  Ucen- 
tious  in  many  of  their  writings.^ 

Music,  however,  by  means  of  the  tone  and  modulation  of 
the  voice,  expresses  subUme  thoughts  with  grandeur,  pleasant 
ones  with  sweetness,  and  ordinary  ones  with  calmness,  and 
sympathies  in  its  whole  art  with  the  feelings  attendant  on 
what  is  expressed.^ 

The  key  word  of  education  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  dis- 
cipline. Discipline  in  moral,  spiritual,  social,  and  intellectual 
activities,  but  discipline  that  was  always  overshadowed  by 
the  asceticism  of  the  medieval  church.  The  education  of 
the  young  fell  to  the  church  and  no  systematic  lay  teach- 
ing was  permitted.  Instruction  was  by  catechisms  and  con- 
sisted largely  in  the  rudiments  of  religion.  Education  be- 
came the  process  of  intolerant  perpetuation  of  the  narrow- 
est Christian  traditions.  All  liberality  was  stifled  in  the 
monotonous  repetition  of  religious  rites  and  ceremonies. 

That  education  should  then  necessarily  have  been  narrow 
and  restricted  in  its  subject-matter  can  well  be  understood 
when  we  call  to  mind  the  character  of  this  time  of  which 
Professor  Sumner  says : 

The  period  entirely  lacked  historical  sense  and  critical  method. 
What  it  had  received  from  the  last  preceding  generation  was, 
and  must  have  been  always.  But  that  was  the  mores.  Horror 
of  heretics,  witches,  Mohammedans,  Jews,  was  in  them,  and 
so  were  all  the  other  intense  faiths,  loves,  desires,  hates,  and 
efforts  of  the  period.  In  the  lack  of  reading,  travel,  and  dis- 
cussion there  was  very  little  scepticism.  Life  went  on  from 
day  to  day  by  repetition  along  the  grooves  of  usage  and  habit. 
Such  life  makes  strong  mores,  but  also  rigid  and  mechanical 
ones.^ 

1  Institutes  of  Oratory,  bk.  i,  ch.  viii,  5-6.  *  Ihid.,  ch.  x,  24. 

3 "  Religion  and  the  Mores,"  Puh.  Amer.  Sociological  Society,  vol. 
iv,  p.  14. 


317]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  57 

Yet  life  in  the  early  Christian  church  had  been  a  schooling 
of  very  great  importance.  It  was  in  one  sense  a  reaction 
against  the  corrupt  society  of  the  pagan  centuries.  As  such, 
it  was  of  course  an  intensely  religious  education.  It  pos- 
sessed little  intellectual  content.  It  was  during  this  period 
that  the  character  of  education  for  a  thousand  years  after 
the  Christianization  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  shaped.^ 
To  gain  an  insight  into  the  spirit  of  intolerance  for  any- 
thing that  suggested  the  intellectual  we  have  but  to  read  the 
following  passage  from  Tertullian's  ''  Prescription  Against 
Heretics":' 

These  are  the  doctrines  of  man  and  of  demons  produced  for 
the  itching  ears  of  the  spirit  of  this  world's  wisdom;  this  the 
Lord  called  "  foolishness  ",  and  chose  even  the  foolish  things 
•of  this  world  to  confound  even  philosophy  itself.  For  phil- 
osophy is  the  material  of  the  world's  wisdom  and  rash  inter- 
preter of  the  nature  and  dispensation  of  God.  Indeed  here- 
sies themselves  are  instigated  by  philosophy.  .  .  .  What  con- 
cord is  there  between  the  Academy  and  the  Church?  .  .  . 
Away  with  all  attempts  to  produce  a  mottled  Christianity  of 
Stoic,  Platonic,  and  didactic  composition. 

The  strict  traditional  teaching  of  the  Catechism  and  the 
Scriptures  in  the  Catechumenal  Schools,  the  Catechetical 
Schools  and  later  in  the  Episcopal  and  Cathedral  Schools, 
permitted  little  intellectual  training.  The  allegorical  method 
of  interpretation  used  by  the  Greeks  to  explain  trivial,  ir- 
rational, or  immoral  acts,  in  order  to  give  them  a  rational 
or  moral  meaning,  was  adopted  by  Philo  and  it  spread 
through  Judaic  education.  The  Christians  were  not  slow 
in  making  use  of  the  device.     Allegory  became  the  great 

^  Monroe,  History  of  Education,  p.  230. 

2  In  The  Library  of  Fathers  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  vol.  x, 
pp.  440-442. 


58  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [318- 

contrivance  by  means  of  which  the  Church  justified  the- 
Old  Testament  to  Greek  thought/ 
But  we  must  remember  that: 

In  monasticism  the  education  of  the  early  Church  finds  its  cul- 
mination and  perpetuation.  From  the  sixth  century  to  the 
thirteenth,  save  for  the  cathedral  schools, — which  during  the 
greater  part  of  this  period  were  in  a  state  of  but  minor  activity 
and  even  then  taught  for  the  most  part  by  monks, — there  was 
in  Western  Europe  no  other  education  containing  any  intel- 
lectual element.  Again,  since  in  the  activities  of  the  friars  the 
work  of  the  early  universities  is  largely  included,  for  three 
additional  centuries  this  type  of  monasticism  continued  to  be 
the  most  important  single  educational  institution.^ 

The  Benedictine  Rule  and  the  later  Monkish  rules  con- 
stituted a  mass  of  detailed  regulations  for  all  the  activities - 
of  monastic  life  which  were  almost  as  arbitrary  and  monoto- 
nous as  the  regulations  of  a  Confucian  text.  In  the  Bene- 
dictine Rule  we  read  concerning  how  many  Psalms  are  to^ 
be  said  in  the  night: 

In  winter  time,  having  first  said  the  verse,  *'  O  God  make  speed 
to  save  me,  O  Lord  make  haste  to  help  me,"  secondly  there 
must  be  said  thrice,  "  O  Lord,  open  Thou  my  lips,  and  my 
mouth  shall  shew  forth  Thy  praise,"  to  which  is  to  be  sub- 
joined Psalm  iii,  and  a  Gloria.  After  this.  Psalm  xciv  (E.  V. 
Ps.  xcv),  with  an  antiphon,  or  at  any  rate  be  chanted.  Then 
let  there  follow  the  Ambrosian  Hymn  {Mterne  Rerum),  then 
six  Psalms  with  their  antiphons ;  which  being  finished  and  the 
verse  said,  let  the  Abbat  give  benediction,  and,  all  sitting  in 
their  stalls,  let  these  be  read  by  the  brethren  in  turn  from  a 
b^ook  set  upon  the  lectern,  three  lessons  between  which  let 
three  responds  be  sung.     Let  two  responds  be  said  without 

^  Monroe,  op.  cit.,  pp.  224-233. 
^Ibid.,  p.  244. 


319]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  59 

the  Gloria;  but  often  the  third  lesson  let  him  who  sings  say  the 
Gloria,  which  when  the  cantor  begins  to  say  at  once  let  all  rise 
from  the  seats  out  of  honor  and  reverence  to  the  most  Holy 
Trinity. 

Now  let  there  be  read  on  Vigils  as  well  the  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  as  of  the  New  of  Divine  authority ;  and,  more- 
over, those  expositions  of  them  which  have  been  made  by  the 
most  celebrated  and  orthodox  and  Catholic  Fathers.  And 
after  these  three  lessons,  with  their  responds,  let  there  follow 
the  remaining  six  Psalms,  to  be  sung  with  "  Alleluia  ".  After 
these  let  there  follow  the  lecture  out  of  an  Apostle,  to  be 
recited  by  heart,  and  a  verse  and  the  supplication  of  the 
Litany — that  is,  the  Kyric  Elcison.  And  thus  let  the  night 
Vigils  end.^ 

What  intellectual  instruction  there  was  in  the  monasteries 
besides  the  customary  study  of  the  Scriptures,  consisted  in 
the  arts  of  reading,  writing,  and  the  calculation  of  the 
church  calendar.^ 

In  the  higher  fields  of  learning  we  hear  the  voice  of  Abe- 
lard  protesting  against  the  deadening  and  undiscriminating 
transmission  of  church  tradition.  Abelard  makes  free  to 
come  forward  in  his  "  Yea  and  Nay  "  with  criticism  of  the 
custom  of  accepting  the  writings  of  the  church  Fathers  as 
implicit  truth.  He  points  out  the  many  contradictions  and 
obscurities  in  their  innumerable  writings.  Respect  for  their 
authority  should  not  stand  in  the  way  of  an  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  student  to  arrive  at  the  truth.  Therefore  all 
these  writings  should  be  read  with  full  freedom  of  criticism 
and  with  no  obligation  to  accept  unquestionably;  otherwise 
the  way  to  all  discussion  would  be  blocked.* 

1  The  Rule  of  St.  Benedict,  The  Church  Press  Co.    Reprinted  from 
the  Church  Review  (London,  1866),  ch.  ix,  pp.  17-18. 

'  Monroe,  o/».  cit.,  pp.  257-259. 
8  McCabes,  Abelard. 


6o  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [320 

Even  the  early  aggregations  of  masters  and  scholars  at 
Paris,  Oxford,  and  Bologna,  did  not  long  offer  a  free 
market  for  instruction.  Higher  education  was  fated  to 
come  under  the  social  ban  as  long  as  it  persisted  in  con- 
cerning itself  with  criticism  of  sacred  usage  rather  than 
with  the  transmission  of  holy  tradition.  Free  discussion 
and  criticism  appeared  to  endanger  the  conservation  of  es- 
tablished custom.  The  habitual  function  of  education 
seemed  about  to  be  endangered.  So  it  was  not  long  before 
intellectual  traffic  was  meddled  with,  and  "  by  hook  or 
crook,  a  regulative  finger  was  laid  upon  the  windpipe  of 
learning."  The  result  was  that  '*  By  bulls,  charters,  or 
licenses  to  teach,  the  old  free  university,  which  had  origi- 
nated independently  alike  of  civil  and  papal  authority,  was 
brought  under  the  central  organs  of  control."  In  this  way 
the  perpetuation  of  tradition  and  custom  was  again  assured 
and  "  the  university  itself  became  a  close  corporation,  fitted 
in  due  time  by  its  timid  sense  of  responsibility  and  its  con- 
servative temper  to  become  a  pillar  of  order."  ^ 

In  the  period  of  the  Reformation  elementary  school  edu- 
cation began  to  receive  great  attention.  The  people  must 
be  able  to  read  in  order  that  the  Bible  might  be  interprete.l 
by  the  individual  conscience.  At  the  same  time  the  Jesuits 
perfected  a  system  of  secondary  education  based  on  the 
Greek  and  Latin  classics.  These  two  movements  in  educa- 
tional advance  were  essentially  concerned  with  the  transmis- 
sion of  those  traditional  elements  of  intellectual  training 
which  each  sect  thought  it  important  to  preserve  as  con- 
tributing to  the  future  maintenance  of  their  respective  so- 
cial orders. 

Professor  Ross  regards  the  traditional  classical  education 
founded  by  the  Jesuits  as : 

^  Ross,  op.  cit.,  p.  171. 


32 1  ]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  6l 

a  most  interesting  device  of  control  over  the  middle  and  rul- 
ing classes.  For  a  pyramidal  society  putting  a  severe  strain 
on  obedience,  the  safest  and  best  education  is  one  that  wears 
away  the  energy  of  youth  in  mental  gymastics,  directs  the 
glance  toward  the  past,  cultivates  the  memory  rather  than  the 
reason,  gives  polish  rather  than  power,  encourages  acquies- 
cence rather  than  inquiry,  and  teaches  to  versify  rather  than 
to  think.  It  is  natural  that  teachers  in  meeting  such  require- 
ments should  construct  a  system  that  favors  the  humanities 
rather  than  the  sciences,  literature  and  language  rather  than 
history,  and  the  forms  of  literature  rather  than  the  substance.^ 

With  the  spread  of  the  democratic  idea  in  more  recent 
times,  the  aim  of  education  has  undergone  further  modifi- 
cation.^ Although  the  old  function  of  transmitting  tradition 
is  still  the  raison  d'etre  of  education,  the  content  of  the  tra- 
ditions to  be  conserved  is  more  carefully  scrutinized.  More- 
over, the  sanction  behind  them  is  slowly  shifting  from  pure 
precedent  to  reason.  Education  has  become  increasingly  in- 
tellectual. The  teaching  of  the  common  school  has  taken  on 
an  intellectual  bias,  not  because  it  was  particularly  de- 
manded, but  probably  because  the  sects  in  their  mutual 
jealousy  have  gradually  canceled  out  of  public  education 
nearly  all  religious  instruction.^  And  so,  more  by  accident 
than  by  design,  public  school  education  has  tended  to  be* 
come  an  aid  to  individual  success  rather  than  the  old  type- 
forming  instrument  of  society.  Webster  voiced  this  some- 
what different  aim  of  education  in  these  democratic  times, 
when  he  said : 

On  the  diffusion  of  education  among  the  people  rests  the 
preservation  and  perpetuation  of  our  free  institutions.     I  ap- 

1  Ross,  op.  cit.,  pp.  171-172. 

2  Butler,  The  Meaning  of  Education  (New  York,  1898),  pp.  108-109. 
•  Ross,  op.  cit.,  p.  176. 


62  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [322 

prehend  no  danger  to  our  country  from  a  foreign  foe.  .  .  . 
Our  destruction,  should  it  come  at  all,  will  be  from  another 
quarter.  From. the  inattention  of  the  people  to  the  concerns 
of  the  government,  from  their  carelessness  and  negligence.  I 
confess  I  do  apprehend  some  danger.  I  fear  that  they  may 
place  too  implicit  confidence  in  their  public  servants,  and  fail 
properly  to  scrutinize  their  conduct ;  that  in  this  way  they  may 
be  made  the  dupes  of  designing  men  and  become  the  mstru- 
ments  of  their  undoing.  Make  them  intelligent  and  they  will 
be  vigilant;  give  them  the  means  of  detecting  the  wrong  and 
they  will  apply  the  remedy.^ 

Summing  up  this  all  too  brief  review  of  the  literature  of 
certain  periods  in  the  history  of  education  two  general  con- 
clusions stand  forth. 

One  is,  that  historically,  education  has  functioned  as  a 
conserver  of  tradition  and  custom.  But  when  we  consider 
the  content  of  the  traditions  and  customs  conserved  by  edu- 
cational means  in  primitive  times  and  in  backward  civiliza- 
tions, we  must  admit  that  education  has  perpetuated  super- 
stition and  prejudice.  The  antiquity  of  man  as  now  under- 
stood, means  that  modern  civilization,  even  if  we  date 
its  beginning  some  three  thousand  years  ago  to  the  rise  of 
the  Greek  culture,  is  but  a  small  and  relatively  recent  period 
in  the  history  of  mankind.  During  all  the  ages  of  savagery 
which  antedated  the  earliest  Greek  culture,  the  educational 
process  must  have  concerned  itself  with  the  conservation 
of  traditions,  the  content  of  which  we  would  now  regard 
as  superstition.  In  this  sense  then,  the  educational  process 
throughout  most  of  its  history  has  been  anything  but  the 
means  of  spreading  enlightenment. 

The  other  general  conclusion  relates  to  the  question: 
what  determined  the  traditions  which  education  conserved? 

^Plymouth  Oration. 


323]  EDUCATION  CONSERl'ES  THE  MORES  63 

The  answer  appears  to  be  that  they  were  determined  by 
the  mores  of  the  time,  that  the  non-progressive  adjustment 
which  was  the  aim  of  primitive  education  was  a  product  of 
the  mores  of  primitive  peoples.  The  lore  of  their  ancestors 
was  infalHble.  Social  usage  was  fixed.  And  the  mores  of  that 
time  contained  traditional  matter  of  a  most  irrational  sort, 
but  they  were  correct  and  proper  customs  and  had  to  con- 
served. The  mores  of  backward  civilization,  of  which 
China  was  taken  as  a  type,  are  essentially  tough  and  un- 
yielding. They  contained  all  manner  of  absurdities  and 
useless  acts  but  they  had  the  sanction  of  deep-seated  social 
habit. ^  The  mores  of  the  Greeks  were  more  plastic  and 
tolerant  and  education  therefore  became  a  progressive  and 
a  liberal  training.^  The  Romans  were  a  practical  people. 
Their  mores  were  practical.  Education  became  a  practical 
training.  But  when  the  mores  of  Rome  became  lax  in  the 
later  Empire,  education  aimed  to  conserve  those  intellectual 
elements  of  tradition  which  lent  polish  and  elegance  rather 
than  sound  ability.^  Hence  the  ideal  of  the  Roman  edu- 
cated man  became  the  orator.  During  the  dark  period  of 
the  Middle  Ages  the  mores  were  a  confusion  of  conflicting 
elements.  Discipline  was  in  them  because  only  by  strict 
rules  in  morals  and  religion  could  one  find  peace  in  that 
tumioil.  Hence  education  was  moral,  spiritual,  or  religious 
discipline  as  the  case  happened.  In  one  and  all  of  these 
periods  education  conserved  certain  mores. 

The  mores  which  education  conserved  were  not  always 
the  same  mores.  Sometimes  education  tended  to  conserve 
the  mores  of  the  masses  of  the  people  and  again  it  tended 
to  conserve  the  mores  of  classes.    Variation  was  determined 

^  Sumner,  Folkways,  pp.  71-73. 
^ Ibid.,  pp.  104-106. 
^Ibid.,  pp.  100-103. 


64  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [324 

by  the  size  and  complexity  of  the  group.  Small  and  homo- 
geneous groups  of  kindred  perpetuated  mores  of  the  whole 
clan  by  initiation  ceremonies.  Every  male  child  was  in- 
itiated and  trained  in  a  spirit  of  reverence  for  the  elders  of 
the  clan  before  he  could  be  a  full-fledged  member.  In 
larger  and  more  complex  groups,  organized  education  con- 
served the  mores  of  the  dominant  class.  In  Sparta,  all  acts 
and  thoughts  were  subordinated  to  the  work  of  developing 
warriors.  Consequently  education  conserved  in  the  main 
the  mores  of  the  Spartan  people.  In  Athens,  we  see  a 
gradual  narrowing  down  of  the  mores  conserved.  The 
educated  classes  grew  relatively  smaller.  Organized  edu- 
cation tended  more  and  more  to  be  the  luxury  of  aristocratic 
classes.  Roman  education  began  with  the  conservation  of 
mores  of  the  whole  people.  The  laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables 
were  taught  at  home  and  in  the  schools.  In  the  time  of  the 
Empire,  when  Hellenic  influence  dominated  instruction,  or- 
ganized education  sought  to  conserve  certain  intellectual 
elements  in  the  mores  of  the  upper  classes.  The  same  nar- 
rowing-down  process  that  we  observed  in  Greece  occurred 
in  Rome.  Certain  mores  of  the  classes  composed  the  tra- 
ditional matter  that  organized  education  conserved.  The 
masses  were  largely  neglected.  In  Medieval  times,  organ- 
ized education  was  confined  to  the  training  of  the  monks 
within  the  monasteries.  Habits  of  mind  characteristic  of  a 
restricted  class  were  perpetuated.  University  teaching  of 
later  medieval  times  was  a  process  of  preserving  certain 
mores  of  a  highly-selected  class.  With  the  Renaissance, 
organized  education  reached  larger  numbers.  Protestant 
elementary  education  and  Jesuit  secondary  school  educa- 
tion conserved  certain  mores  of  sects.  Class  mores  were 
still  the  dominant  interest  in  organized  education.  The 
sons  of  gentlemen  were  the  favored  few.  Thus  it  has  been 
that  organized  education  has  tended  often  to  conserve  the 


325]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  65 

mental  habits  of  classes  rather  than  the  mental  habits  of  the 
masses  of  the  people. 

In  modern  times,  the  field  of  organized  education  has 
been  enormously  extended.  The  interests  of  life  have  been 
multiplied  and  complicated  by  practical  applications  of  sci- 
ence and  the  general  economic  development.  All  classes 
feel  the  pressure  of  increasing  demand  for  a  better  intel- 
lectual training  of  their  youth.  Although  organized  educa- 
tion continues  to  put  its  emphasis  on  the  conservation  of 
certain  mores  of  the  classes,  great  elementary  school  sys- 
tems have  been  developed  to  reach  the  masses  of  the  people. 

In  America,  education  was  first  insisted  on  for  religious 
reasons.  Life  was  simple  and  the  population  was  homo- 
geneous. Education  had  been  the  luxury  of  the  gentlemanly 
class.  By  1835  there  began  to  be  a  change  in  the  attitude 
of  society  towards  many  questions.^  After  disclosures  of 
corruption  in  public  life^  the  need  of  an  educated  electorate 
began  to  be  felt.  The  principle  of  tax-supported  schools 
was  generally  accepted  in  all  the  Northern  states  by  1850. 
Public  education  became  a  national  interest.  But  the  com- 
mon schools  provided  only  a  most  rudimentary  training  in 
the  three  R*s.  There  was  little  liberal  element  in  the  cur- 
riculum. From  1875  to  1900  ^  there  were  many  changes 
in  the  methods  of  common  school  education.  Liberal  sub- 
jects began  to  crowd  the  old  disciplinary  material  in  re- 
sponse to  social  demands  from  without  the  school.  Draw- 
ing was  introduced  at  the  petition  of  Massachusetts  business 
men.  Manual  training  was  introduced  after  the  exhibit  of 
the  Russian  government  at  the  Centennial  Exhibition  of 
1876.     Laboratory  instruction,  music,  and  elementary  sci- 

^  E.    P.    Cubbcrley,    Changing   Conceptions    of   Education,    (Boston, 
1909),  p.  ^  et  seq. 
'  Ibid.,  p.  40,  et  seq. 


66  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [326 

ence,  were  added  in  the  course  of  time.  These  innovations 
were  dubbed  "  fads  and  frills  "  by  the  conservative  element. 
But  they  came  to  stay  because  they  met  new  needs  arising 
out  of  our  complex  social  conditions.  The  ethnic  hetero- 
geneity of  our  population  has  been  an  important  cause  of 
the  complete  secularization  of  the  school.  The  religious  ele- 
ment which  was  originally  dominant  has  almost  entirely  dis- 
appeared. "  The  need  of  broad,  general,  and  diversified 
training,  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  future  rather  than  to 
the  needs  of  the  present  or  past,  becomes  more  evident."  ^ 

There  is  great  need  for  the  elementary  school  to  cultivate 
the  critical  habit  of  mind  in  its  pupils.  This  can  only  be 
done  by  insisting  on  accuracy  and  a  rational  control  of  all 
processes  and  methods,  and  the  holding  of  everything  open 
to  unlimited  verification  and  revision.  "  The  critical  habit 
of  thought,  if  usual  in  a  society,  will  pervade  all  its  mores, 
because  it  is  a  way  of  taking  up  the  problems  of  life.  Men 
educated  in  it  cannot  be  stampeded  by  stump  orators  and  are 
never  deceived  by  dithyrambic  oratory."  ^ 

Therefore  while  education  conserves  tradition  in  the  gen- 
eral sense,  in  the  more  particular  sense  it  aims  to  conserve 
certain  mores  of  a  time  and  place,  whatever  they  may  be.^ 

Before  making  an  intensive  study  of  the  curricula  of  our 
elementary  schools  in  the  effort  to  find  there  concrete  evi- 
dence in  support  of  this  thesis,  the  writer  wishes  to  cite 
certain  passages  from  the  works  of  prominent  educational- 

lE.  P.  Cubberley,  op.  cit.,  p.  5i- 

2  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  633. 

3  Professor  Dutton  says  in  Social  Phases  of  Education  in  the  School 
and  the  Home,  p.  39,  "  The  education  required  for  any  age  is  deter- 
mined by  the  character  of  that  age.  Human  needs  change  and  ideals 
of  manhood  and  womanhood  are  modified,  so  the  methods  employed  in 
training  the  young  at  any  particular  time  will  receive  an  impress  and 
a  sanction  from  the  social  conditions  of  that  time." 


327]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  67 

ists  and  scientists  which  recognize  the  truth  of  the  conten- 
tions herein  made. 

President  Butler  in  his  book  on  The  Meaning  of  Educa^ 
Hon,  says: 

For  now  we  all  understand  perfectly  well  that  this  long  period 
of  infancy  and  adaptation,  this  period  of  plasticity  and  educa- 
tion, is  that  which  makes  progress  possible.  That  is  why  it 
is  entirely  correct  to  say  that  each  generation  is  the  trustee 
of  civilization.  Each  generation  owes  it  to  itself  and  to  its 
posterity  to  protect  its  culture,  to  enrich  it  and  to  transmit  it. 
The  institution  that  mankind  has  worked  out  for  that  purpose 
is  the  institution  known  as  education.  When  a  child  has 
entered  into  this  inheritance,  first  physical,  then  scientific, 
literary,  aesthetic,  institutional,  and  religious,  then  we  use  the 
word  culture  to  signify  the  state  that  has  been  attained.^ 

President  Vincent  in  The  Social  Mind  and  Education, 
says : 

The  function  of  transmitting  from  one  generation  to  the  next 
the  contents  of  the  collective  tradition  has  itself  been  charac- 
terized by  increasing  social  self-consciousness.  Beginning  in 
the  haphazard  communication  of  empirical  knowledge,  dex- 
terities, customs,  and  beliefs  from  parents  to  children,  instruc- 
tion has  been  more  and  more  socialized  and  organized  until 
in  the  great  educational  systems  of  modern  nations,  societies 
purposefully  seek  to  secure  the  orderly  transmission  and  con- 
stant enrichment  of  the  collective  knowledge,  feelings,  and 
volitions,  which,  realized  in  individual  consciousness,  form 
the  content  of  the  social  mind.  In  general,  education  may  be 
regarded  from  the  social  point  of  view  as  a  reflective  effort 
to  preserve  the  continuity  and  to  secure  the  growth  of  common 
tradition.  Just  as  the  successive  stages  of  consciousness  in 
the  individual  form  a  coherent  unity  with  which  self  or  per- 
sonality is  associated,  so  society  gains  unity  and  self-conscious- 

^  P.  32. 


68  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [328 

ness  from  a  well-organized  and  continuous  collective  tradition 
which  therefore  constitutes  the  essential  vital  principle  of  the 
social  organism.  Since  the  social  mind  can  exist  only  in  the 
minds  of  individuals,  society  seeks  its  own  perpetuation  and 
advancement  by  preparing  the  young  gradually  to  appropriate 
the  collective  tradition  in  general,  and  by  training  a  few  minds 
to  receive  and  elaborate  its  various  highly  specialized  divi- 
sions. Thus,  though  individuals  are  constantly  dying  and 
others  are  taking  their  places,  the  social  tradition  not  only 
persists  but  is  progressively  analyzed  and  synthesized,  growing 
ever  deeper  and  richer  in  truth,  aesthetic  and  moral  feeling,, 
ideas,  and  aims.  Education  seeks,  therefore,  to  relate  indi; 
vidual  consciousness  intrinsically  to  the  social  mind.  The 
social  organism  is  in  final  analysis  a  psychic  organism.^ 

In  My  Pedagogic  Creed,  Professor  John  Dewey  says : 

I  believe  that  all  education  proceeds  by  the  participation  of 
the  individual  in  the  social  consciousness  of  the  race.  This 
process  begins  unconsciously  almost  at  birth,  and  is  continu- 
ally shaping  the  individual's  powers,  saturating  his  conscious- 
ness, forming  his  habits,  training  his  ideas,  and  arousing  his 
feelings  and  emotions.  Through  this  unconscious  education 
the  individual  gradually  comes  to  share  in  the  intellectual  and 
moral  resources  which  humanity  has  succeeded  in  getting 
together.  He  becomes  an  inheritor  of  the  funded  capital  of 
civiHzation.- 

I  believe  Ihat  education  is  a  regulation  of  the  process  of 
coming  to  share  in  the  social  consciousness ;  and  that  the  ad- 
justment of  individual  activity  on  the  basis  of  social  conscious- 
ness is  the  only  sure  method  of  social  reconstruction.^ 

In  his  text-book  on  The  History  of  Education,  Professor 
Paul  Monroe  says : 

The  problem  of  education  is  to  transmit  to  each  succeeding 
1  Pp.  91-92.  2  p.  5.  s  p,  16. 


329]  EDUCATION  CONSERVES  THE  MORES  69 

generation  the  elements  of  culture  and  of  institutional  life  that 
have  been  found  to  be  of  value  in  the  past,  with  that  addi- 
tional increment  of  culture  which  the  existing  generation  has 
succeeded  in  working  out  for  itself;  to  do  this,  and  also  to 
give  to  each  individual  the  fullest  liberty  in  forming  his  own 
purposes  in  life  and  in  shaping  these  to  his  own  activities. 

.  .  .  The  problem  of  the  school  is  to  take  the  material  se- 
lected by  the  educator  to  incorporate  it  into  the  life  of  each 
member  of  the  coming  generation  so  as  to  fit  him  into  the 
social  life  of  the  times.  .  .  .^ 

President  James  H.  Baker,  of  the  University  of  Colo- 
rado, said : 

Certainly  the  belief  in  accumulated  heredity  is  widespread, 
and  nothing  but  scientific  demonstration  will  overthrow  it. 
In  the  meantime,  even  if  Weismannism  be  true,  the  accumu- 
lated culture  of  the  race  is  transmissible  from  generation  to 
generation  through  education,  and  this  fact  strengthens  the 
faith  of  the  optimist.^ 

Whether  Weismann's  view  or  Spencer's  of  heredity  be  true, 
we  may  be  sure  that  widespread  education  pays,  because  the 
accumulated  traditions  and  stores  of  knowledge  are  transmis- 
sible, if  not  by  heredity,  then  at  least  by  education  and  social 
atmosphere.'' 

In  The  Fifth  Year-hook  of  the  National  Herhart  Society, 
I.  W.  Howerth  writes : 

Looking  at  the  distribution  of  knowledge  from  the  societary 
point  of  view,  it  is  obvious  that  it  must  ever  be  a  function  of 
education  to  conserve  the  past  accumulation  of  knowledge,  to 
preserve  and  distribute  our  intellectual  heritage.* 

^  P.  758. 

*  In  The  Investigations  of  the  Department  of  Psychology  and  Edu- 
cation, The  Uniz-ersity  of  Colorado,  vol.  i.  no.  3,  p.  4  1903- 
^Ibid.,  p.  6. 
*P.  80. 


CHAPTER  IV 
The  Importance  and  the  Extent  of  the  Mores 

Because  our  mental  content  is  largely  determined  by 
what  our  forefathers  believed  to  be  necessary  for  "  right 
living,"  we  forget  that  tradition  and  custom  have  become 
the  norm  by  which  we  judge  our  individual  experiences. 
Accordingly  new  observations  and'  thoughts  are  trans- 
mitted to  the  child  as  traditional  matter,  much  as  folk- 
lore is/  Consequently  new  perceptions,  in  the  child's  mind, 
are  associated  with  the  mass  of  traditional  material  and 
are  interpreted  by  it.  This  in  part  is  why  it  is  a  mistake 
to  assume  that  interpretation  of  life  by  each  civilized  in- 
dividual is  a  logical  process.  Interpretation  of  external 
things  is  never  purely  naive  and  original.  The  content  of 
the  mind,  largely  determined  by  social  usage  and  conven- 
tions of  class  and  time,  refracts  impression,  and  so  deter- 
mines final  form.^ 

When  we  compare  the  modes  of  life  of  different  nations^ 

*  Boas,  "  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,"  p.  6. 

'  *'  We  are  only  too  apt  ...  to  forget  entirely  the  general,  and,  for 
the  most  of  us,  purely  traditional,  theoretical  basis  which  is  the  foun- 
dation of  our  reasoning,  and  to  assume  that  the  result  of  our  reasoning 
is  absolute  truth.  In  this  we  commit  the  same  error  that  is  committed, 
and  has  been  committed,  by  all  the  less  civilized  peoples.  They  are 
more  easily  satisfied  than  we  are  at  the  present  time,  but  they  also 
assume  as  true  the  traditional  element  which  enters  into  their  ex- 
planations, and  therefore  accept  as  absolute  truth  the  conclusions 
based  on  it."    Ibid.,  p.  8. 

70  [330 


331  ]      IMPORTANCE  AND  EXTENT  OF  THE  MORES  yj 

and  contrast  civilized  man  with  primitive  man,  we  cannot 
fail  to  observe  how  many  of  our  actions  are  determined  by 
traditional  associations.  The  whole  range  of  our  daily  life 
is  unconscious  adherence  to  custom.  We  can  give  no  logi- 
cal or  physiological  reason  why  we  eat  three  meals  a  day 
and  feel  displeasure  if  we  miss  one.  Many  people  eat  two 
meals  a  day  and  some  eat  four.  Why  is  it  that  we  do  not 
eat  dogs,  cats,  or  horses?  Our  aversion  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  on  other  grounds  than  those  of  custom,  since 
many  people  regard  dogs  and  horses  as  rare  dainties.^ 
Consider  our  mode  of  dress;  any  departure  from  the  style 
of  the  day  brings  ridicule  upon  the  offender.  Public  ap- 
pearance in  the  garb  of  ancient  Greece  has  recently  received 
the  mark  of  public  disapproval  and  the  offence  was  treated 
as  within  the  police  power.  Custom  is  the  autocrat  also 
of  table  manners. 

To  smack  one's  lips  is  considered  decidedly  bad  style,  and 
may  even  excite  feelings  of  disgust:  while  among  the  Indians, 
for  instance,  it  would  be  considered  as  in  exceedingly  bad  taste 
not  to  smack  one's  lips  when  one  is  invited  to  dinner,  because 
it  would  suggest  that  the  guest  does  not  enjoy  his  dinner.  The 
whole  range  of  actions  that  are  considered  as  proper  and  im- 
proper cannot  be  explained  by  any  logical  reason,  but  are 
almost  all  entirely  due  to  custom:  that  is  to  say,  they  are 
purely  traditional.  This  is  even  true  of  the  customs  which 
excite  strong  emotions,  as,  for  instance,  those  produced  by 
infractions  of  modesty.^ 

Definite  instances,  however,  in  which  divergence  in  proper 
actions  is  considerable  are  not  hard  to  find.  Professor  Boas 
notes  an  interesting  one  as  follows : 

Among  ourselves  it  is  considered  proper  and  a  matter  of 
course  to  treat  the  old  with  respect,  for  children  to  look  after 

1  Boas,  op.  cit.,  p.  8.  ^  7^,-^.,  p.  q. 


72  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [332 

the  welfare  of  their  aged  parents ;  and  not  to  do  so  would 
be  considered  base  ingratitude.  Among  the  Eskimo  we  find 
an  entirely  different  standard.  It  is  required  of  children  to 
kill  their  parents  when  they  have  become  so  old  as  to  be  help- 
less and  no  longer  of  any  use  to  the  family  or  to  the  com- 
munity. It  would  be  considered  a  breach  of  filial  duty  not  to 
kill  the  aged  parent.  Revolting  though  this  custom  may  seem 
to  us,  it  is  founded  on  the  ethical  law  of  the  Eskimo,  which 
rests  on  the  whole  mass  of  traditional  lore  and  custom.^ 

Other  customs  of  other  peoples  and  other  times  appear 
equally  strange  to  us: 

Some  Australian  girls  consider  that  their  honor  requires  that 
they  shall  be  knocked  senseless  and  carried  off  by  the  men 
who  thereby  become  their  husbands.  If  they  are  the  victims 
of  violence,  they  need  not  be  ashamed.  Eskimo  girls  would  be 
ashamed  to  go  away  with  husbands  without  crying  and 
lamenting,  glad  as  they  are  to  go.  They  are  shocked  to  hear 
that  European  women  publicly  consent  in  church  to  be  wives, 
and  then  go  with  their  husbands  without  pretending  to  regret 
it.  In  Homer,  girls  are  proud  to  be  bought  and  to  bring  their 
fathers  a  bride  price  of  many  cows.^ 

Professor  Sumner  has  called  this  mass  of  custom  and 
traditional  material  controlling  our  acts — the  Folkways. 
They  originate,  no  man  knows  just  when  or  how.  Men 
do  not  reflect  upon  them  until  long  after  they  have  become 
established.  Then  attention  is  drawn  to  them  only  when 
the  smooth  stream  of  social  consciousness  is  broken  into  by 
some  circumstance  which  sets  up  a  new  model  of  imitation 
that  seems  fundamentally  opposed  to  all  that  is  established. 
Sumner  says : 

all  the  life  of  human  beings,  in  all  ages  and  stages  of  culture, 

1  Boas,  op.  cit.,  p.  10. 

2  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  109. 


333]      IMPORTANCE  AND  EXTENT  OP  THE  MORES  73 

is  primarily  controlled  by  a  vast  mass  of  folkways  handed 
down  from  the  earliest  existence  of  the  race,  having  the  nature 
of  the  ways  of  other  animals,  only  the  topmost  layers  of  which 
are  subject  to  change  and  control,  and  have  been  somewhat 
modified  by  human  philosophy,  ethics,  and  religion,  or  by  other 
acts  of  intelligent  reflection.^ 

The  folkways,  therefore,  are  not  creations  of  human  pur- 
pose and  wit.  They  are  like  products  of  natural  forces  which 
men  unconsciously  set  in  operation,  or  they  are  like  the  in- 
stinctive ways  of  animals,  which  are  developed  out  of  experi- 
ence, which  reach  a  final  form  of  maximum  adaptation  to  an 
interest,  which  are  handed  down  by  tradition  and  admit  of  no 
exception  or  variation,  yet  change  to  meet  new  conditions, 
still  within  the  same  limited  methods,  and  without  rational 
reflection  or  purpose.^ 

The  operation  by  which  folkways  are  produced  consists  in 
the  frequent  repetition  of  petty  acts,  often  by  great  numbers 
acting  in  consort  or,  at  least,  acting  in  the  same  way  when 
face  to  face  with  the  same  need.  The  immediate  motive  is 
interest.  It  produces  habit  in  the  individual  and  custom  in 
the  group.  It  is,  therefore,  in  the  highest  degree  original  and 
primitive.  By  habit  and  custom  it  exerts  a  strain  on  every  in- 
dividual within  its  range;  therefore  it  rises  to  a  societal  force 
to  which  great  classes  of  societal  phenomena  are  due.^ 

The  process  of  making  the  folkways  is  never  superseded 
or  changed.  It  goes  on  now  just  as  it  did  at  the  beginning 
of  civilization.  "  Use  and  wont "  exert  their  force  on  all 
men  always.  They  produce  familiarity,  and  mass  acts  be- 
come unconscious.* 

All  this  goes  to  illustrate  the  fact,  taught  by  Anthro- 
pology, that  man  the  world  over  believes  that  he  follows  the 
•dictates  of  his  reason  no  matter  how  unreasonable  his  acts 

^  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  4. 
^Ibid.,  p.  4- 
'  Ibid.,  p.  3.  *  fbid..  p.  35- 


74  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [334. 

may  be.  The  knowledge  that  there  exists  a  tendency  in  the 
human  mind  to  arrive  at  conclusions  first  and  to  give  rea- 
sons afterwards  will  throw  light  upon  many  obscure  things. 
It  helps  us  to  realize  that  our  philosophic  views  and  our 
political  convictions  are  so  largely  determined  by  our  emo- 
tional inclinations  that  the  reasons  we  give  are  not  the 
reasons  by  which  we  arrive  at  our  conclusions,  but  generally 
only  the  explanations  which  we  give  for  our  conclusions.^ 
Out  of  the  folkways  develop  the  mores.  The  mores  al- 
ways represent  the  struggle  to  live  as  well  as  possible  under 
the  conditions.  They  are  a  vast  and  complex  mass  of  acts 
and  thoughts  of  mixed  quality.  They  are  the  folkways 
which  have  survived  and  which  at  any  given  time  constitute 
the  sanction  behind  the  acts  and  thoughts  of  that  time 
and  place.     Professor  Sumner  describes  them  as  follows: 

The  mores  come  down  to  us  from  the  past.  Each  individual 
is  born  into  them  as  he  is  born  into  the  atmosphere,  and  he- 
does  not  reflect  on  them,  or  criticise  them  any  more  than  a 
baby  analyzes  the  atmosphere  before  he  begins  to  breathe  it. 
Each  one  is  subjected  to  the  influence  of  the  mores,  and 
formed  by  them,  before  he  is  capable  of  reasoning  about  them. 
It  may  be  objected  that  now-a-days,  at  least,  we  criticise  all 
traditions,  and  accept  none  just  because  they  are  handed  down 
to  us.  If  we  take  up  cases  of  things  which  are  still  entirely 
or  almost  entirely  in  the  mores,  we  shall  see  that  this  is  not 
so.  There  are  sects  of  free-lovers  amongst  us  who  want  to- 
discuss  pair  marriage.  They  are  not  simply  people  of  evil 
life.  They  invite  us  to  discuss  rationally  our  inherited  cus- 
toms and  ideas  as  to  marriage,  which  they  say,  are  by  no 
means  so  excellent  and  elevated  as  we  believe.  They  have 
never  won  any  serious  attention.  Some  others  want  to  argue 
in  favor  of  polygamy  on  grounds  of  expediency.  They  fail 
to  obtain  a  hearing.    Others  want  to  discuss  property.    In  spite 

1  Boas,  "  Anthropology  ",  p.  27. 


335]      IMPORTANCE  AND  EXTENT  OF  THE  MORES  7^ 

of  some  literary  activity  on  their  part,  no  discussion  of  prop- 
erty, bequest,  and  inheritance  has  ever  been  opened.  Prop- 
erty and  marriage  are  in  the  mores.  Nothing  can  ever  change 
them  but  the  unconscious  and  imperceptible  movement  of  the 
mores.  Religion  was  originally  a  matter  of  the  mores.  It 
became  a  societal  institution  and  a  function  of  the  state.  It 
has  now  to  a  great  extent  been  put  back  into  the  mores.  Since 
laws  with  penalties  to  enforce  religious  creeds  or  practices 
have  gone  out  of  use,  any  one  may  think  and  act  as  he  pleases 
about  religion.  Therefore  it  is  not  now  "  good  form "  to 
attack  religion.  Infidel  publications  are  now  tabooed  by  the 
mores,  and  are  more  effectually  repressed  than  ever  before. 
They  produce  no  controversy.  Democracy  is  in  our  Ameri- 
can mores.  It  is  a  product  of  our  physical  and  economic  con- 
ditions. It  is  impossible  to  discuss  or  criticise  it.  It  is  glorified 
for  popularity,  and  is  a  subject  of  dithyrambic  rhetoric.  No 
one  treats  it  with  complete  candor  and  sincerity.  No  one 
dares  to  analyze  it  as  he  would  aristocracy  or  autocracy. 
He  would  get  no  hearing  and  would  only  incur  abuse.  The 
thing  to  be  noticed  in  all  these  cases  is  that  the  masses  oppose 
a  deaf  ear  to  every  argument  against  the  mores.  It  is  only 
in  so  far  as  things  have  been  transferred  from  the  mores 
into  laws  and  positive  institutions  that  there  is  discussion 
about  them  or  rationalizing  upon  them.  The  mores  contain 
the  norm  by  which,  if  we  should  discuss  the  mores,  we  should 
have  to  judge  the  mores.  We  learn  the  mores  as  uncon- 
sciously as  we  learn  to  walk  and  eat  and  breathe.  The  masses 
never  learn  how  we  walk,  and  eat,  and  breathe,  and  they  never 
know  any  reason  why  the  mores  are  what  they  are.  The  jus- 
tification of  them  is  that  when  we  wake  to  consciousness  of 
life  we  find  them  facts  which  already  hold  us  in  the  bonds  of 
tradition,  custom,  and  habit.  The  mores  contain  embodied  in 
them  notions,  doctrines,  and  maxims,  but  they  are  facts.  They 
are  in  the  present  tense.  They  have  nothing  to  do  with  what 
ought  to  be,  will  be,  may  be,  or  once  was,  if  it  is  not  now.^ 

^  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  pp.  7^77- 


76  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [336 

Until  there  is  contact  with  another  society,  a  group  is 
never  conscious  of  its  mores/  Sometimes,  however,  a  so- 
ciety gets  information  of  is  mores  by  literature  after  it  has 
attained  a  higher  civilization.  But  the  latter  never  affects 
more  than  the  literary  classes  and  the  masses  of  society 
never  consciously  set  about  the  task  of  making  mores.  The 
mores  grow  up,  grow  strong,  become  corrupt,  decline,  and 
die,  as  if  they  were  organisms.  In  later  stages  they  tend 
to  be  rigid  although  in  the  earlier  stages  they  were  elastic 
and  plastic.  Phases  of  change  in  the  mores  follow  one  an- 
other as  if  independent  of  reason  or  will,  but  are  in  fact 
produced  by  a  strain  towards  better  adjustment  to  the  con- 
ditions and  interests  of  society,  or  of  the  controlling  ele- 
ments in  it.  x\  society  does  not  record  its  mores  because 
they  are  unnoticed  and  unconscious. 

Throughout  this  discussion  the  writer  uses  the  term  mores 
in  a  somewhat  more  restricted  sense  than  Professor  Sumner's 
and  more  closely  follows  distinctions  made  by  Professor 
Giddings.  The  mores  are  folkways  which  the  community 
partly  unconsciously  by  the  folkway  method  but  partly  con- 
sciously or  reflectively  has  selected  from  amongst  the  whole 
mass  of  folkways  to  be  preserved  and  having  selected  pre- 
serves by  inculcation  or  teaching.  They  are  the  folkways 
which  came  into  existence  unconsciously,  but  which  survive 
in  part  through  conscious  preference  and  approval.  And  in 
Professor  Sumner's  own  words — "  The  mores  contain  the 
norm  by  which,  if  we  should  discuss  the  mores,  we  should 
have  to  judge  the  mores."  ^ 

The  religious  mores  determine  those  religious  actions 
and  thoughts  which  constitute  all  that  irrational  and  tra- 
ditional sanction  of  "  proper  "  religious  attitude  on  obtrud- 
ing religious  questions.     The  political  mores  determine  the 

1  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  78.  2  Jj^id.,  p.  yy. 


337]      IMPORTANCE  AND  EXTENT  OF  THE  MORES  yj 

political  acts  and  ways  of  thinking  which  constitute  political 
orthodoxy,  allegiance  to  party,  respect  for  laws  and  con- 
stitution; they  determine  political  "propriety"  in  a  time 
and  place. 

The  existence  of  '*  classes  "  in  society  is  an  important  fac- 
tor in  changing  the  mores.  "  Leisure  "  classes,  differen- 
tiated by  one  standard  or  another,  at  one  time  or  another, 
have  controlled  the  policy  of  generations.  "  Classes  "  have 
their  own  mores,  but  they  have  selected  purposes  and  they 
have  invented  ways  of  fulfilling  them.^  Their  ways  how- 
ever are  nearly  always  imitated  by  the  "  masses." 
"  Classes  "  set  up  models  of  luxury,  frivolity,  and  vice,  also 
of  refinement,  culture,  and  art.  They  more  freely  regulate 
their  lives  by  choice  than  the  "  masses  "  can,  and  so  they  can 
introduce  variations  in  living.  Tarde  has  said :  "  Given  the 
opportunity,  a  nobility  will  always  and  everywhere  imitate 
its  leaders,  its  kings  or  suzerains,  and  the  people,  likewise,, 
given  the  opportunity,  its  nobility."  " 

The  **  masses  "  are  not  merely  "  classes  "  at  the  base  of 
a  social  pyramid ;  they  are  the  core  of  society.  They  accept 
life  as  they  find  it  and  live  by  tradition  and  habit.  They 
are  conservative,  but  their  conservatism  is  not  the  politic 
conservation  of  controlling  "  classes."  It  is  rather  a  con- 
servatism existing  in  spite  of  interests,  a  conservatism  of 
mere  inertia.^ 

The  mores  of  the  masses  admit  of  no  sudden  change  or 
massive  modification.  New  models  of  imitation  are  as- 
similated slowly  and  are  attended  at  every  stage  by  modify- 
ing influences.  What  the  controlling  classes  adopt,  whether 
it  be  good  or  ill,  may  be  found  pervading  the  mass  of  later 

1  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  45. 
'  Tarde,  Laws  of  Imitation,  p.  217. 
8  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  45. 


^8  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [338 

generations,  "  but  it  will  appear  as  a  resultant  of  all  the  vicis- 
situdes of  the  folkways  in  the  interval."  ^ 

Custom  however  is  subject  to  revision  even  though  change 
be  gradual  and  the  revision  slight.  Professor  Giddings 
says :  "  Traditional  belief  is  ever  being  modified  by  new 
thought;  there  is  an  integration  of  tradition  with  current 
opinion.  The  results  are  variously  known  as  standards, 
codes,  policies,  ideals,  tastes,  faiths,  creeds  and  '  isms  '."  ^ 

Of  models  of  imitation  and  their  great  significance, 
Bagehot  has  said : 

.  .  .  this  unconscious  imitation  and  encouragement  of  appre- 
ciated character,  and  this  equally  unconscious  shrinking  from 
the  persecution  of  disliked  character,  is  the  main  force  which 
moulds  and  fashions  men  in  society  as  we  now  see  it  .  .  .  the 
more  acknowledged  causes,  such  as  change  of  climate,  altera- 
tion of  political  institutions,  progress  of  science,  act  primarily 
through  this  cause  .  .  .  they  change  the  object  of  imitation 
and  the  object  of  avoidance,  and  so  work  their  effect.^ 

The  appreciated  character  which  becomes  the  object  of 
imitation  must  have  within  it  elements  of  the  old  as  well 
as  a  spice  of  the  new.  People  appreciate  when  things  are 
so  far  familiar.  Consequently  when  the  new  object  is  a 
new  combination  of  old  materials,  the  craving  for  variety 
is  stimulated  while  confidence  is  maintained.  Tarde  re- 
cognizes this  necessity  when  he  says : 

And  yet  the  traditional  and  customary  element  is  always,  I 
repeat,  preponderant  in  social  life,  and  this  preponderance  is 
forcibly  revealed  in  the  way  in  which  the  most  radical  and 
revolutionary  innovations  spread  abroad;  for  their  supporters 
can  farther  them  only  through  oratorical  or  literary  talent, 

1  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  46. 

2  Giddings,  The  Principles  of  Sociology,  3rd.  ed.,  p.  145. 
'  Bagehot,  Physics  and  Politics,  p.  97. 


339]      IMPORTANCE  AND  EXTENT  OF  THE  MORES  yg 

through  superior  hancUing  of  language,  not  of  scientific,  or 
philosophic,  or  technical  language,  all  bristling  with  new  terms, 
but  of  the  old  antique  language  of  the  people,  so  well  known 
to  Luther  and  Voltaire  and  Rousseau.  The  old  ground  is 
always  the  vantage-point  from  which  to  tumble  down  old  edi- 
fices and  to  rear  up  new  ones.  The  established  morality  is 
always  the  basis  for  the  introduction  of  new  political  ideas. ^ 

Professor  Ross  in  his  chapter  on  "  Custom  "  interprets 
Tarde  by  saying :  "  For  a  while  the  course  of  imitation  is 
between  the  past  and  the  present ;  then  the  current  changes, 
and  the  course  of  imitation  lies  between  contemporaries. 
To  down-transmission  or  social  heredity  succeeds  cross- 
imitation  or  conventionality."  ^ 

Probably  there  has  never  been  more  cross-imitation  in  all 
history  than  in  the  past  half-century  and  at  the  present  time. 
The  tremendous  development  of  science,  the  advantages 
accruing  from  mechanical  invention,  and  the  firmer  econo- 
mic basis  of  industry  and  commerce,  have  combined  to  com- 
plicate the  simple  process  of  down-transmission  which 
was  hardly  uninterrupted  for  centuries.  All  these  factors 
have  contributed  to  man's  control  of  nature  and  have  con- 
spired to  bring  about  his  emancipation  from  environmental 
constraints.  Two  results,  inextricably  related,  have  fol- 
lowed. On  the  one  hand  there  has  been  growing  among  all 
classes  an  increasing  confidence  in  the  power  of  man.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  has  been  a  gradual  undermining  of 
belief  in  the  infallibility  of  tradition.  Natural  barriers 
between  civilized  societies,  such  as  oceans,  continents,  de- 
serts, and  tnountain  ranges,  have  almost  ceased  to  be 
barriers.  Besides  possibilities  of  travel  for  masses  of  peo- 
ple, opportunities  for  communication  are  opened  to  those 

»  Tarde.  op.  cit.,  pp.  246-7. 
'  Ross,  Social  Control,  p.  186. 


8o  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [340 

who  have  to  remain  at  home.  In  the  United  States  alone 
more  than  eleven  billion  telephone  messages  are  annually 
sent/ 

Traditions  which  contain  elements  of  superstition  and 
prejudice,  are  often  protected  by  the  isolation  of  the  group 
in  which  they  flourish.  Prejudice  and  superstition  feed 
upon  the  local  and  familiar  things.  The  belief  that  one's 
home  town  is  superoir  to  the  town  a  hundred  miles  away 
is  not  weakened  by  staying  at  home.  If  tradition  teaches 
that  the  local  and  old-fashioned  way  of  life  is  best,  nothing 
can  make  a  sudden  change  in  that  way  of  life  short  of 
actual  experience  of  a  better  way. 

The  broader  and  firmer  economic  foundation  of  our  civili- 
zation is  another  source  of  confidence.  The  growth  of  com- 
merce and  industry  to  the  present  enormous  dimensions,, 
the  resulting  tendency  towards  universalism  and  disinter- 
estedness in  great  business  and  financial  enterprises,  has  con- 
tributed to  the  destruction  of  much  prejudice  and  super- 
stition. "  The  ultimate  explanation  of  the  rise  of  human- 
tarianism  is  the  increased  power  of  man  over  nature  by  the 
acquisition  of  new  land,  and  by  advance  in  the  arts.  When 
men  ceased  to  crowd  on  each  other,  they  were  all  willing  to 
adopt  ideas  and  institutions  which  made  the  competition  of 
life  easy  and  kindly."  ^  Old  breeding  places  of  superstition 
become  more  circumscribed.  The  cherished  idea  of  a 
"  fixed  "  and  "  absolute  "  order  of  things  has  received  rude 
handling  by  modern  evolutionist  science ;  and  the  mores  of 
the  controlling  classes  are  being  permeated  by  scientific  ideas. 
But  the  mores  of  the  "  masses  "  are  more  resistant. 

No  world  philosophy,  until  the  modern  scientific  world  phil- 
osophy, and  that  only  within  a  generation  or  two,  has  ever 
presented   itself   as   perhaps   transitory,   certainly   incomplete, 

*  The  New  International  Encyclopedia,  vol.  xix,  p.  106.  • 
2  Sumner,  op,  cit.,  p.  39. 


341  ]      IMPORTANCE  AND  EXTENT  OF  THE  MORES  gl 

and  liable  to  be  set  aside  to-morrow  by  more  knowledge.  No 
popular  world  philosophy  or  life  policy  ever  can  present  itself 
in  that  light.  It  would  cost  too  great  a  mental  strain.  All  the 
groups  whose  mores  we  consider  far  inferior  to  our  own  are 
quite  as  well  satisfied  with  theirs  as  we  are  with  ours.^ 

Indeed  the  implications  of  the  new  scientific  notions  of 
change  are  almost  inconceivable  to  the  masses.  Genera- 
tions must  pass  before  the  real  meaning  of  these  ideas  can 
penetrate  their  mores.  What  change  may  come  will  be  ex- 
ceedingly slow,  for  '*  changes  which  run  with  the  mores 
are  easily  brought  about,  but  .  .  .  changes  which  are  op- 
posed to  the  mores  require  long  and  patient  effort,  if  they 
are  possible  at  all."  ^  The  universality  of  the  implications 
of  the  new  ideas  make  them  essentially  opposed  to  mores. 
They  are  independent  of  ritual,  and  changes  which  affect 
ritual  modify  mores  in  the  shortest  time.  Therefore  the 
limits  within  which  it  is  possible  to  introduce  new  ideas  into 
the  mores  by  educational  means,  are  narrow.*  Traditional 
elements  are  bound  to  give  way  eventually  in  conflict  with 
new  interests  arising  out  of  modern  science  and  invention. 
But  change  in  the  mores  of  the  masses  can  come  only 
through  continued  substitution  of  new  material  bit  by  bit 
for  the  old  through  generations.     Professor  Boas  says : 

There  is  an  undoubted  tendency  in  the  advance  of  civiliza- 
tion to  eliminate  traditional  elements,  and  to  gain  a  clearer 
and  clearer  insight  into  the  hypothetical  basis  of  our  reason- 
ing. It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that,  with  the  advance  of 
civilization,  reasoning  becomes  more  and  more  logical,  not  be- 
cause each  individual  carries  out  his  thought  in  a  more  logical 
manner,  but  because  the  traditional  material  which  is  handed 
(lown  to  each  individual  has  been  thought  out  and  worked  out 
more  thoroughly  and  more  carefully.* 

*  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  79.  2  /^,(/.^  p.  94.  3  Jbid.,  p.  95. 

*  Boas,  "  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,"  p.  & 


CHAPTER  V 
Elementary  School  Curricula  and  the  Mores 

"  Remembering  how  vast  is  the  inertia  of  ignorance,  how 
brief  is  the  time  within  which  we  may  hope  to  impress  en- 
during lessons  upon  the  minds  of  our  fellow-men,  we  can- 
not afford  to  misdirect  our  efforts  or  to  squander  any  energy 
that  may  be  available  for  the  discipline  and  enlightenment 
of  the  people."  ^ 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  over  ninety  per  cent  of  our  school 
population  attends  only  elementary  schools  the  importance 
of  the  elementary  school  in  the  educational  system  is  evident. 
When  we  ask  ourselves  whether  our  elementary  school 
system  really  functions  as  we  desire  that  it  should  in  the 
light  of  the  foregoing  quotation,  we  find  that  the  question 
can  be  answered  only  by  considering  two  other  matters. 
The  first  is  that  the  power  of  forming  rational  opinion  by 
clear  thinking  can  be  attained  only  through  knowledge  of 
the  real  facts  of  life.  The  other  is  the  nature  of  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  elementary  school  curriculum.  If  the  subjects 
taught  comprise  our  best  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  life, 
the  elementary  school  is  furnishing  its  pupils  with  material 
of  real  social  value.  If,  however,  the  subjects  taught  com- 
prise only  material  which  is  largely  of  a  traditional  nature, 
the  elementary  school  training  is  but  a  wider  confirmation 
of  ordinary  mores.  In  such  a  case,  as  formerly,  intellectual 
education  functions  as  the  conserver  of  tradition. 

'  Giddings,   "  Popular    Instruction   in    a   Democracy,"   in   Democracy 
and  Empire  (New  York,  1901),  p.  234. 

82  [342 


343]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  83 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  have  seen  that  any  explanation 
which  a  man  gives  of  his  new  impressions  must  be  in  terms 
of  traditional  material,  which  makes  up  his  mental  content. 
In  savagery  and  in  civilization  the  average  man  carries  his 
attempt  to  explain  only  far  enough  to  amalgamate  the  new 
phenomenon  with  previously  held  ideas.  Thus  the  result 
of  the  process  depends  upon  the  character  of  that  tradi- 
tional material.  Therefore  the  immense  importance  of  folk- 
lore in  determining  a  mode  of  thought,  the  enormous  in- 
fluence of  current  philosophic  opinion  upon  the  masses,  and 
the  influence  of  the  dominant  scientific  theory  upon  the 
character  of  scientific  work.^ 

We  can  hardly  exaggerate  therefore  the  significance  of 
the  character  of  traditional  material.  If  it  is  full  of  super- 
stitions and  prejudicial  beliefs,  the  interpretation  put  upon 
natural  phenomena  will  be  correspondingly  distorted.  More 
specifically,  if  present  mental  content  is  composed  of  beliefs 
that  are  mutually  exclusive,  or  contradictory,  explanations 
of  experience  are  equally  irrational,  and  conduct  is  eccen- 
tric. 

The  same  stimulus  acting  on  the  primitive  and  the  civil- 
ized man's  mind,  sets  up  dififerent  associations  because 
of  differences  in  traditional  content  of  the  mind.  This  re- 
sults in  different  explanations  of  the  same  phenomena. 
Thus  an  explosion  may  associate  itself  in  the  primitive  mind 
with  a  tale  of  the  miraculous  creation  of  the  world  and 
awaken  feelings  of  uncontrollable  fear;  in  the  civilized  mind, 
the  explosion  may  raise  question  of  where  the  dynamite  or 
powder  was  stored,  how  much  explosive  was  ignited,  how 
it  came  to  explode,  and  so  on. 

Many  examples  might  be  given  of  differences  in  the 
thought  of  civilized  men  in  different  social  classes.     The 

»  Boas,  "  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,"  p.  7- 


84  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [344 

person  in  question  may  have  known  of  a  chance  case  where 
some  member  of  a  dinner  party  of  thirteen  happened  to  die 
a  short  time  after  the  occasion.  In  this  case  the  person 
disHkes  to  attend  a  dinner  party  of  thirteen  because  the 
traditional  associations  brought  up  tend  to  cause  a  fear 
of  mysterious  consequences.  To  mention  only  one,  the 
survival  in  many  highly  intelligent  minds  of  the  thirteen 
superstition,  which  has  wholly  disappeared  from  other 
minds  is  certainly  attributable  to  differences  in  traditional 
content. 

A  folk-lore  content  absorbed  in  the  early  days  of  plas- 
ticity and  adaptability,  usually  is  but  little  modified  in  the 
years  succeeding  youth.  For  one  thing  the  average  man 
has  not  the  time  nor  the  energy  for  self-improvement  be- 
yond what  comes  in  the  daily  routine  of  life.  The  mores 
of  the  average  home  are  beyond  doubt  narrow  and  pro- 
vincial. Only  one  other  agency  of  inculcation  touches  the 
average  individual  in  formative  years,  namely  'the  ele- 
mentary school. 

The  subject-matter  of  the  elementary  school  curriculum 
therefore  largely  determines  the  mental  content  by  which 
new  observations  and  continuing  reflections  upon  experience 
will  be  refracted  throughout  life.  And  since  our  interpre- 
tations of  experience  react  on  conduct,  it  is  unnecessary  to 
dwell  on  the  enormous  importance  to  the  individual  and  to  so- 
ciety of  the  actual  character  of  the  alleged  knowledge  which 
the  elementary  school  inculcates.  If  it  is  to  neutralize  the 
superstitions  and  the  damaging  suggestions  that  pour  in 
upon  the  young  mind  from  every  quarter  during  formative 
years  it  must  be  true  to  the  facts  of  life,  and  universal  in 
quality.  A  normal  mental  content  consisting  of  knowl- 
edge of  the  real  facts  of  life  viewed  in  the  light  of  a  wide 
and  tolerant  interest,  is  the  only  guarantee  of  moral  balance 
rmd  intellectual  equilibrium. 


345]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  85 

VVc  cisk  ilieii :  Does  the  elementary  school  of  to-day  offer 
such  a  normal  mental  content,  as  a  preparation  for  modern 
life,  or  does  it  only  supplement  and  confirm  traditional  mat- 
ter already  supplied  from  elsewhere? 

Examining  time  allotments  of  various  subjects  in  the 
curricula  of  the  public  elementary  schools  of  America,  Eng- 
land, Germany  and  France,  we  obtain  some  notion  of  the 
estimated  importance  of  the  three  R's  as  compared  with  the 
three  content  studies  Geography,  Science,  and  History. 
From  Dj.  Payne's  tables  of  the  curricula  of  thirty  repre- 
sentative cities,  ten  American,  ten  English,  ten  German, 
and  the  curriculum  of  the  whole  centralized  French  system, 
we  obtain  the  following  general  conclusions.  The  average 
time  allotment  to  the  three  R's  in  the  elementary  school 
systems  of  these  four  nations,  is  about  56  per  cent.  Geo- 
graphy receives  about  6  per  cent.  Science,  including  Na- 
ture Study,  Elementary  Science,  Object  Lessons,  etc., 
slightly  over  4  per  cent,  and  History  less  than  5  per  cent  of 
the  entire  time  of  school  hours.^  Individual  variations 
among  the  systems  are  somewhat  as  follows.^  The  time 
allotments  to  the  three  R's,  in  the  American,  English, 
and  German  cities  are  all  around  60  per  cent,  whereas 
the  French  system  stands  alone  in  giving  less  than  50  per 
cent  time  to  these  subjects.  But  there  is  more  diversity 
among  the  nations  in  time  allotment  to  the  three  content 

*  The  ten  American  cities  were :  New  York  City,  Boston,  Chicago, 
New  Orleans,  San  Francisco,  Kansas  City,  Kan.,  Jersey  City,  Colum- 
bus, Ga.,  Louisville,  Ky..  and  Cleveland,  O.  The  ten  English  cities 
were:  London,  Manchester,  West  Ham,  Bolton,  Norwich,  Carlisle, 
West  Hartlepool.  New  Castle,  Wellingborough,  and  Castleford.  The 
ten  German  cities  were:  Berlin,  Konigsburg,  Gottingen.  Wiesbaden, 
Dresden,  Miinchen,  Wiirzburg.  Stuttgart.  Karlesruhe,  and  Hamburg. 
For  statistics  and  tables  see  B.  R.  Payne.  Public  Elementary  School 
Curricula  (New  York.  1905),  p.  195.  table  Ixi. 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  39,  96,  137,  164,  tables  xiii,  xxxvii,  Ivi,  and  lix. 


86  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [346 

studies.  France  is  well  ahead  in  a  time  allotment  to  Geo- 
graphy and  History  of  about  16  per  cent,  America  stands 
next  with  about  12  per  cent,  and  England  and  Germany 
stand  last  with  from  8  to  10  per  cent.  In  Science,  France 
is  again  ahead  with  about  6  per  cent,  the  other  countries 
average  about  4  per  cent  each. 

When  we  examine  these  thirty  representative  cities  of 
America,  England,  and  Germany,  with  reference  to  the 
variations  among  cities  in  respective  time  allotments  to 
these  subjects,  we  obtain  interesting  results.  There  is  a 
greater  range  of  variation  in  time  allotment  devoted  to  the 
three  R's  among  the  ten  American  cities,  than  among  the 
ten  English  cities  or  among  the  ten  German  cities.  But 
there  is  a  smaller  range  of  variation  in  the  time  allotments 
devoted  to  Geography,  Science,  and  History,  among  Ameri- 
can cities,  than  is  found  among  the  cities  of  either  of  the 
other  groups.  The  fact  that  the  American  systems  vary 
less  than  the  foreign  systems  do,  in  time  devoted  to  the 
three  content  studies  perhaps  points  to  the  conclusion  that 
in  America  these  subjects  have  received  more  permanent 
recognition  than  in  the  foreign  countries.  That  is.  Geo- 
graphy, Science,  and  History,  have  come  to  stay  in  the 
American  system,  whereas  in  England  and  Germany  there 
must  still  be  some  difference  of  opinion  respecting  their 
place  in  the  public  elementary  school  curriculum.  This 
conclusion  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  in  America 
there  is  now  a  difference  of  opinion  about  the  apportion- 
ment of  time  to  the  three  R's,  while  in  foreign  systems  the 
variation  at  this  point  is  slight.  Moreover,  since  there  is 
no  central  authority  in  the  American  system,  as  there  is  in 
all  of  the  foreign  systems,  requiring  a  minimum  of  pre- 
scribed studies,  the  curricula  of  the  American  systems  may 
perhaps  be  regarded  as  the  more  natural  and  genuine  re- 
flection of  national  mores.     This  conclusion  is  supported 


347]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  87 

by  a  remarkable  uniformity  of  time  allotments  to  content 
studies  by  city  systems  in  widely  separated  parts  of  our 
country. 

Our  city  school  systems  are  on  the  whole  more  progres- 
sive than  rural  systems  in  their  adjustment  to  social  needs. 
We  will  therefore  examine  the  curricula  of  the  elementary 
and  grammar  schools  in  some  of  our  most  representative 
and  progressive  city  school  systems.^  In  this  way  organ- 
ized education  as  it  reaches  the  masses,  may  be  given  the 
benefit  of  the  doubt. 

The  intellectual  part  of  the  school  curriculum,  the  part 
that  here  concerns  us,  consists  of  a  study  of  the  three 
R's,  geography,  science,  and  history.  The  three  content 
studies  represent  distinctly  modern  introductions.^  The 
three  R's,  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  are  given  over 
40  per  cent  of  the  entire  time,  and  if  we  include  with  the 
three  R's,  spelling,  language,  and  literature,  these  tradi- 
tional subjects  have  over  62  per  cent  of  the  time.^  Thus 
the  content  studies  which  we  have  mentioned,  are  actually 
given  much  less  than  30  per  cent  of  the  entire  time  because 
such  additional  subjects  as  music,  manual  training,  draw- 
ing, gymnastics,  etc.,  are  also  provided  for.     Historically 

*  From  the  syllabi  of  courses  in  Geography,  Science,  and  History,  of 
New  York  City,  Boston,  Chicago,  Columbus,  Ga. ;  St.  Louis,  Mo.; 
Buffalo,  N.  Y. ;  Cleveland,  O.,  and  Columbus,  O.,  and  from  Dr.  Payne's 
tables  as  mentioned  above. 

'  Payne,  op.  cit.,  pp.  58-62. 

•  The  figures  that  Dr.  Payne  gives  on  p.  39,  table  xiii,  for  the  period 
1900  to  1904  have  not  been  essentially  modified  since,  i.  c,  a  table  like 
Payne's  table  xiii,  based  on  the  average  time  given  in  the  year  1909- 
19 10  to  each  study  in  each  grade  of  the  schools  of  Boston,  New  York, 
Philadelphia.  Rochester,  Oeveland,  Cincinnati,  Indianapolis,  St.  Louis, 
Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  San  Francisco,  shows  results  which  agree 
with  Payne's  table. 


88  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  ^[348 

since  1868,  the  three  R's  have  lost  time  and  geograpiiy,  sci- 
ence, and  history,  have  gained  time/ 

Let  us  note  next  at  what  grades  the  three  content  studies, 
geography,  science,  and  history,  are  most  stressed.^ 

The  largest  time  allotment  is  given  to  geography  in 
grades  iv,  v  and  vi.  In  grade  iv  geography  receives  more 
attention  than  in  grades  v  and  vi,  although  the  subject  is 
spread  over  the  whole  course  of  eight  grades.  When  we 
examine  the  precise  topical  subject-matter  taught,  we  find 
that  besides  political  geography  some  elementary  notions  of 
physical  geography,  mineralogy,  meteorology,  astronomy, 
and  even  economics  and  sociology,  run  through  the  courses 
as  given  in  some  of  our  most  progressive  city  school  sys- 
tems.^ We  find,  however,  that  notions  of  general  human 
interest  and  genuine  social  value  have  not  penetrated  below 
the  fourth  grade  but  are  usually  confined  to  the  later  grades. 
The  reason  for  this  is  in  part  the  extreme  youth  of  the 
pupils  at  grades  iv  and  below,  and  in  part  another  circum- 
stance which  we  shall  consider  later.  The  topics  in  geo- 
graphy introduced  in  the  primary  grades  are  naturally  the 
most  elementary  notions.  The  subject  is  usually  confined 
for  the  first  five  grades  to  local  and  state  geography. 
It  is  common  to  find  the  broader  economic,  social,  and 
scientific  aspects  of  the  subject  treated  in  the  higher  grades. 
Besides  these  subjects  of  universal  interest,  world  geo- 
graphy with  a  more  or  less  intensive  study  of  European 

*  Payne,  op.  cit.,  pp.  58-62. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  49,  et  seq. 

»  Notably  those  of  Boston,  Buffalo,  Chicago,  and  New  York.  For 
example,  in  the  syllabus  of  topics  taught  under  Geography  in  Boston, 
we  find  such  subjects  as  Routes  of  Travel,  Study  of  People  Industries^ 
World  Relations,  Commerce,  Climatic  Features,  Great  Features  of 
Relief,  the  Making  of  Soils,  Drainage,  etc.,  etc.,  and  similarly  for  the 
other  cities  mentioned. 


349]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  Sg 

and  Oriental  countries  receives  attention  in  the  last  four 
grades.     Political  geography  is  stressed  throughout. 

Science  in  the  elementary  schools,  taught  as  nature 
study  or  better  still  as  a  part  of  geography,  runs  through 
all  grades  but  is  disorganized.^  There  seems  to  be  little 
agreement  among  cities  as  to  the  grouping  of  the  diverse 
topics  treated  and  less  regarding  the  grade  in  which  a 
topic  should  receive  most  emphasis.  Generally  speaking, 
however,  descriptive  botanical  (flowers,  trees,  grains, 
mosses,  etc.)  and  descriptive  zoological  (animals,  birds, 
fishes,  their  habits,  etc.)  subjects  receive  most  attention  in 
the  first  six  grades.  This  arrangement  is  of  course,  largely 
determined  by  the  nature  of  the  subjects  concerned,  and  the 
capacity  of  the  child  mind.  Geological  and  mineralogical 
subjects  receive  greatest  stress  in  grades  iv,  v  and  vi.  This 
is  natural  because  these  subjects  are  most  conveniently  con- 
nected with  the  study  of  geography  as  emphasized  in  the 
same  grades.  Elementary  meteorological  topics,  dealing 
with  the  weather,  winds,  climatic  changes,  etc.,  are  touched 
upon  in  all  grades.  Physics,  as  perhaps  the  most  difficult 
and  abstract  subject  under  science  is  almost  entirely  con- 
fined to  grades  vii  and  viii.  Generally  speaking,  the  ten- 
dency seems  to  be  for  science  to  find  its  place  in  the  ele- 
mentary school  curriculum  as  an  enrichment  of  the  study  of 
geography. 

History,  in  some  respects  the  most  important  of  the 
three  content  studies,  is  distributed  unequally  over  the 
grades.  It  is  emphasized  most  in  the  last  three  grades. 
Before  grade  six,  it  consists  almost  wholly  of  mythological 
tales  and  historical  or  biographical  narrative.  American 
History  is  the  beginning  point  in  all  the  systems.  Topics 
dealing  with  explorations,  settlements,  and  inventions  sel- 

*  Payne,  op.  cit.,  p.  51,  table  xviii. 


po  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [350 

dom  appear  before  grade  iii.  At  least  seven  wars  receive 
most  attention  in  grades  vi,  vii  and  viii,  to  the  probable 
exclusion  of  much  valuable  matter  of  a  sociological  or 
economic  nature.  Topics  dealing  with  movements  of 
population  and  general  economic  subjects,  receive  almost 
no  attention  before  grade  vi.  Political  history  is  pre- 
dominant and  is  confined  largely  to  the  grades  above  the 
sixth.  The  social  sciences  tend  to  find  a  place  in  the  ele- 
mentary school  curriculum  as  an  enrichment  of  the  study 
of  history. 

Throughout  the  teaching  of  these  content-subjects  it  is 
easy  to  discern  the  element  of  tradition  running.  For 
example,  everywhere  political  geography  is  emphasized 
at  the  expense  of  science  and  wider  interests.  For  political 
reasons  it  is  perhaps  desirable  that  this  should  be  so,  but  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  rational  sanction  behind  this  pro- 
cedure is  as  strong  as  the  traditional  sanction.  Admir- 
able as  it  is  to  develop  a  spirit  of  national  patriotism  it  is 
also  desirable  to  cultivate  a  spirit  of  world  citizenship. 
The  large  foreign  populations  of  our  great  cities  make  it 
necessary  to  inculcate  the  national  traditions,  but  this  is 
not  a  reason  for  neglecting  the  wider  aspects  of  human 
interests.  In  the  history  courses  myths,  legends,  heroic 
/tales  and  stories  of  historical  characters,  valuable  when 
'■  properly  taught,  are  emphasized  at  the  expense  of  topics 
of  wider  social  and  economic  interest.  Political  history 
and  wars  take  up  time  in  the  later  grades  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  study  of  movements  of  population,  inventions,  and 
scientific  discoveries.  In  short,  tjie  curriculum  is  adapted 
to  the  mores  of  pur  country.  It  conserves  them,  and  per- 
petuates those  elements  of  patriotism  which  have  a  tradi- 
tional and  sentimental  sanction  instead  of  a  rational  justi- 
fication. The  idea  of  a  *'  chosen  people,"  a  probable  sur- 
vival of  the  grim  necessity  of  early  group  patriotism,   is 


35 1  ]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  qj 

Still  dominant.  It  pervades  the  school  histories.  If  the  writ- 
ers of  text-books  on  history  got  outside  the  mores  of  their 
own  country,  however  great  the  scientific  value  or  the  uni- 
versal human  interest  of  their  work  their  books  would  not  be 
used.  The  elementary  school  conserves  the  mores  of  the 
"  masses."  "  Scientific  "  history  expresses  the  mores  of  a 
class.  A  strictly  non-partisan  text-book  of  history,  then, 
could  not  be  used  in  the  elementary  school.  Yet  it  is  most 
desirable  that  school  histories  should  tend  in  the  non-par- 
tisan direction.  The  citizenship  of  nations  is  becoming  a 
citizenship  of  the  world. 

The  elementary  school  systems  of  our  largest  and  most 
progressive  cities  offer  the  children  a  curriculum  of  in- 
creasing richness  in  the  higher  grades.  If  all  the  children 
who  entered  the  first  grade  remained  eight  years  to  com- 
plete the  grammar  school  course,  they  would  get  at  least 
a  smattering  of  facts  of  broad  human  and  scientific  inter- 
est. It  is  not,  however,  always  possible  to  obtain  teach- 
ers whose  training  has  qualified  them  to  give  pupils  the 
full  benefit  of  the  suggestions  in  some  of  these  syllabi. 
Moreover,  there  is  another  factor  of  grave  importance  and 
considerable  dimensions  which  more  than  halves  the  good 
these  broad  courses  might  otherwise  do,  namely  retarda- 
tion and  elimination  of  pupils. 

Examining  the  grade  distribution  of  pupils  in  the  ele- 
mentary school  systems  of  1,024  American  cities  of  4,000 
inhabitants  and  over,  we  find  that  the  figures  show  a 
startling  diminution  from  the  first  grade  to  the  eighth.^ 
The  figures  for  the  eight  grades  in  the  order  i  to  viii,  are: 

755-388;  591-345:  573724;  538,451;  481,961;  409-817; 
332,987:  and  247.230.  That  the  number  in  the  seventh 
grade  is  less  than  one  half  of  the  first,  and  the  number  in  the 

^  Report  of  t!;c  United  Statrs  Commissioner  of  Education,  for  1909, 
vol.  ii,  p.  629. 


92  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [352 

eighth  grade,  less  than  one  third  of  the  first,  is  startling. 
Population  factors  of  births  and  deaths  are  wholly  inade- 
quate to  explain  these  phenomena/  The  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  numbers  in  the  first  and  last  grades  must  be  ex- 
plained on  other  grounds.  Retardation  and  elimination  of 
pupils  is  the  phenomenon  which,  when  correlated  with  popu- 
lation factors,  explains  this  condition  of  affairs.^ 

Retardation  is  a  widespread  evil.  Professor  G.  D. 
Strayer  shows  how  extensive  it  is  in  his  study  of  319 
American  cities.*  He  finds  that  the  percentage  of  retarded 
pupils  to  the  whole  number  in  school  for  any  particular 
city  school  system,  ranges  from  8  per  cent  in  some  cities 
to  74  per  cent  in  others.  A  range  of  retardation  of  from 
30  to  40  per  cent  is  common.  The  median  is  at  about  38 
per  cent.  For  retardations  of  i  and  2  years  the  median 
percents  are  about  20  and  10. 

Professor  E.  L.  Thorndike  reached  the  following  con- 
clusions from  his  study  of  elimination  in  1907.* 

At  least  25  out  of  100  children  of  white  population  of  our 
country  who  enter  school  stay  only  long  enough  to  learn  to 
read  simple  English,  write  such  words  as  they  commonly  use, 
and  perform  the  four  operations  for  integers  without  serious 

'  L.  P.  Ayres,  "  Factors  Affecting  Grade  Distribution,"  Psychological 
Clinic  (1908),  vol.  ii,  p.  131. 

'  Retardation  means  the  retention  of  a  pupil  in  a  grade  when  his  age 
is  such  that  if  he  had  progressed  normally  he  should  be  in  a  higher 
grade.  For  example,  if  a  pupil  of  14  years  of  age  is  found  in  grade 
vi,  it  is  said  that  he  is  retarded.  Since  the  normal  age  for  grade  vi  is 
from  II  to  13  years,  the  pupil  should  have  advanced  to  grade  viii,  where 
the  normal  age  is  from  13  to  15  years.  Normal  age  for  any  particular 
grade  is  the  two-year-range-period  which  occurs  most  frequently.  It 
is  the  modal  two-year-age-range. 

^Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioners  of  Ediication,  1910, 
vol.  ii,  ch.  xix. 

*  E.  L.  Thorndike.  "  The  Elimination  of  Pupils  from  School,"  pp. 
9-10,  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Education   (i907)»  no-  4- 


353]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  q^ 

errors.  A  fifth  of  the  children  (white)  entering  the  city 
schools  stay  only  to  the  fifth  grade. 

Only  about  a  third  graduate  from  an  elementary  school  of 
seven  grades  or  more. 

Only  about  half  have  any  teaching  of  consequence  concern- 
ing the  history  of  their  own  country  or  any  other,  or  concern- 
ing the  world's  literature,  science,  or  art. 

One  main  cause  of  elimination  is  incapacity  for  and  the 
lack  of  interest  in  the  sort  of  intellectual  work  demanded  by 
present  courses  of  study. 

More  specifically  the  figures  upon  which  these  conclu- 
sions were  based  are  as  follows:  the  general  tendency  of 
American  cities  of  25,000  and  over,  was,  about  1900,  to 
keep  in  school  out  of  100  entering  pupils,  90  till  grade  iv, 
81  till  grade  v,  68  till  grade  vi,  54  till  grade  vii,  40  till  the 
last  grammar  grade,  and  27  till  the  first  year  of  High 
School.^  In  other  words,  10  per  cent  of  the  entering 
pupils  leave  before  grade  iv,  19  per  cent  leave  before  grade 
V,  32  per  cent  leave  before  grade  vi,  46  per  cent  leave  before 
grade  vii,  60  per  cent  leave  before  grade  viii,  and  y^t  P^^ 
cent  leave  before  graduation.^ 

So  much  for  elimination  by  grades.  Elimination  by  age 
was  found  to  be  as  follows.^     Based  on  the  percentage  of 

^  Thorndike,  op,  cit.,  p.  11. 

'  Subsequent  work  on  retardation  as  appearing  in  various  articles  in 
the  Psychological  Clinic  and  the  Educational  R(n'iew,  has  been  in  gen- 
eral agreement  with  the  results  of  Professor  Thorndike's  study.  The 
school  authorities,  however,  have  taken  the  matter  of  retardation  in 
hand.  The  older  pupils  instead  of  being  held  back  with  the  younger 
ones  are  now  promoted  or  else  sent  to  a  school  for  backward  chil- 
dren, 'n  this  way  «o;ne  of  the  statistical  statements  of  retardation 
have  shown  apparent  modification.  It  is  quite  possible,  however, 
that  the  apparent  n.odillcation  is  the  masking  of  real  conditions  for 
administrative  purposes  rather  than  any  genuine  improvement. 

*lbid.,  p.  23. 


94  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [354 

8-year-olds  retained  the  figures  showed:  10  years  old  100 
per  cent,  11  years  old  98  per  cent,  12  years  old  97  per  cent, 
13  years  old  88  per  cent,  14  years  old  70  per  cent,  15  years 
old  47  per  cent,  16  years  old  30  per  cent,  17  years  old  16.5 
per  cent,  and  18  years  old  8.6  per  cent.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  the  dropping-off  becomes  considerable  among  the  13- 
year-olds  where  the  retention  is  but  88  as  compared  with 
a  retention  for  12-year-lods  of  97.  From  the  13  group  up 
the  retention  decreases  rapidly. 

This  second  series  of  results  is  enlightening  when  com- 
pared with  the  first.  For  instance,  there  is  a  relation  be- 
tween the  fact  that  so  many  remained  in  school  till  the 
ages  10,  II,  12,  13,  and  14,  and  so  few  till  grades  v, 
vi,  vii,  and  viii.  There  is  a  relation  also  between  the  fact 
that  97  per  cent  of  the  8-years-olds  remained  till  12,  while 
only  68  per  cent  of  those  in  the  second  grade  remained 
till  the  sixth  grade.  This  relation  means  something  when 
we  learn  two  other  facts:  one  is,  that  the  normal  age  for 
grade  iv  is  9  to  11  years;  for  grade  v,  10  to  12  years;  for 
grade  vi,  11  to  13  years;  and  for  grade  vii,  12  to  14  years: 
the  second  fact  is,  that  there  are  large  numbers  of  13-year- 
olds  in  grades  v  and  vi.  It  means  that  many  of  these 
older  children  are  retarded. 

The  fact  that  large  numbers  (97  per  cent)  of  the  pupils 
remained  till  the  age  of  12  (at  which  age  they  should  norm- 
ally be  in  grade  vi)  coupled  with  the  fact  that  only  68  per 
cent  of  those  entering  remained  to  the  beginning  of  grade 
vi,  points  to  the  conclusion  that  many  of  these  children 
must  have  been  retarded  at  least  one  year.  Since  the  elimi- 
nation of  pupils  in  any  grade,  especially  in  the  lower  grades 
is  largely  of  older  pupils,  it  must  be  precisely  these  re- 
tarded pupils  who  drop  out.  The  retarded  pupils  are 
usually  dull,  uninterested,  or  unfortunate  children  who  are 
old  enough  to  work  but  have  no  prospect  of  graduating. 


^^2]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  9^ 

The  interesting-  fact  then  is  that  the  retarded  pupils  who 
are  old  enough  to  work  but  have  no  incentive  to  remain  in 
school  are  the  ones  who  do  drop  out  and  go  to  work. 
Whereas  the  children  who  are  old  enough  to  work  and  are 
not  retarded,  usually  remain  in  school  and  complete  the 
course.  This  tendency  is  true  of  each  grade  as  we  go  up. 
The  permissible  inference  to  draw  is  therefore,  that  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  pupils  retarded  from  one  to  two 
years,  drop  out  from  mere  lack  of  interest.^  If  they  were 
not  retarded  they  would  in  all  probability  continue  with  the 
others  who  are  old  enough  to  work  but  nevertheless  remain. 
The  incentive  of  economic  gain  as  represented  by  work  age 
has  been  balanced  against  interest  in  the  studies.  In  the 
retardation  case  the  older  child  goes  over  a  dreary  routine 
of  childish  studies.  His  interests  are  not  there.  The  most 
natural  thing  to  do  is  to  obey  the  incentive  to  work  and 
drop  out.  And  these  pupils  who  are  older  than  the  normal 
age  for  the  grade  in  which  they  are  found,  represent  large 
waste. 

With  these  figures  in  mind  let  us  discuss  their  significance 
in  the  light  of  our  previous  study  of  the  elementary  school 
curriculum.  Having  correlated  grade  elimination  with  age 
elimination,  and  both  with  retardation,  let  us  correlate 
them  all  with  the  topical  distribution  of  subjects  in  the 
curriculum. 

The  10  i>er  cent  who  left  before  the  fourth  grade,  re- 
ceived, besides  a  training  in  the  three  R's,  almost  no  geo- 
graphy, because  as  we  have  seen  that  subject  is  stressed 
after  grade  iii :  even  less  material  of  any  historical  value, 
for  history  is  confined  practically  to  grades  after  the  fifth; 
and  only  so  much  elementary  descriptive  science  as  could 
be  given  in  beginning  geography.     In  short,  this  ten  per 

^  As  physical  and  mental  defects  are  often  found  among  retarded 
children,  lack  of  interest  in  studies  may  be  due  quite  as  much  to  this 
fact  as  to  faults  of  instruction. 


96  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [356 

cent  group  received  almost  no  part  of  the  very  limited 
liberal  training  of  the  elementary  school.  The  20  per 
cent  who  dropped  out  before  grade  v,  fared  little  better 
than  the  group  just  named.  The  only  difference  was  that 
they  got  more  geography.  Twenty  per  cent  of  those 
who  entered,  therefore,  received  only  a  training  of  the  most 
narrow  school  mores. 

The  32  per  cent  who  left  before  the  sixth  grade,  had 
studied  more  geography  than  the  previous  groups,  but  had 
not  reached  the  point  in  the  grades  where  geography  is 
taught  in  its  broadest  aspects.  They  had  a  little  training  in 
elementary  science  as  that  was  related  with  geography.  As 
for  history,  which  is  emphasized  chiefly  with  all  its  rich- 
ness in  grades  vi  and  following,  they  had  none  of  it.  The 
training  of  this  group  was  a  little  wider  than  that  of  either 
of  the  previous  groups.  The  mores  inculcated  were  slightly 
leavened  with  wider  interests. 

The  46  per  cent  who  left  before  the  seventh  grade  had  all 
the  training  of  the  last  group  and  had  the  beginnings  of 
the  instruction  in  history  which  form  the  ground-work  for 
valuable  studies  of  the  next  two  grades. 

But  at  this  point  in  the  grades,  as  the  figures  of  retarda- 
tion and  elimination  show,  large  numbers  had  begun  to 
drop  out  and  that  the  ones  who  did  drop  out  were  the 
over  age  pupils  for  grades  iv,  v  and  vi.  In  other  words, 
grades  iv,  v  and  vi  were  glutted  with  over  age  pupils,  pupils 
12,  13,  and  14  years  old  who  should  normally  have  been 
in  the  three  higher  grades  because  retardation  reaches  its 
height  at  grades  iv,  v,  and  vi.  Of  these  over-age  pupils, 
some  had  gone  far  enough  to  receive  a  training  in  the  funda- 
mentals. Others  had  just  reached  the  point  where  the  ele- 
ments of  social  science  begin  to  be  taught  in  the  courses  in 
geography  and  history.  They  had  reached  the  age  at 
which  unretarded  pupils  go  into  higher  grades  and  study 


357]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  97 

the  more  valuable  and  interesting  topics  in  the  content 
studies.  Because  they  had  no  prospect  of  getting  ahead 
and  had  to  mark  time  in  the  study  of  the  three  R's  or  else 
in  the  most  elementary  notions  of  geography,  science,  and 
history,  they  lost  interest  and  dropped  out.  They  had 
barely  reached  the  point  where  the  content  studies  begin 
to  take  on  an  aspect  of  universal  human  interest,  when 
they  were  eliminated. 

We  saw  that  history  received  most  attention  in  grades 
vi,  vii  and  viii.  When  we  remember  that  the  tendency  is 
for  only  40  out  of  every  one  hundred  entering  pupils  to 
complete  even  grade  vii  and  that  only  one  third  complete 
grade  viii,  we  see  how  small  a  proportion  of  children  really 
get  the  benefit  of  history  as  it  is  taught  in  the  later  grades. 
But  this  is  assuming  an  efficient  teaching  force  and  a  system 
tuned  up  to  the  standard  of  progressive  cities  and  we  must 
remember  that  it  is  rarely  possible  to  obtain  as  much  com- 
petency in  the  teaching  force  as  the  best  interpretation  of 
the  syllabus  of  the  most  progressive  system  demands.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  a  careful  study  of  the  teaching  population, 
has  shown  that  it  is  drawn  from  classes  hardly  capable  of 
grasping  the  responsibility  of  their  positions.*  Moreover, 
it  should  be  remembered  that  these  conclusions  are  drawn 
from  an  examination  of  courses  given  in  some  of  our  most 
progressive  city  school  systems,  and  are  representative  of 
the  best  rather  than  of  the  worst  conditions.  When  these 
considerations  are  taken  into  account  in  connection  with 
retardation,  we  must  conclude  that  the  elementary  school 
does  not  impart  as  much  knowledge  of  wide  interests  as  the 
syllabi  of  its  more  progressive  exponents  would  seem  to 
show.^ 

'  L.  D.  Coffman,  The  Composition  of  the  Teaching  Population  (New 
York,    1911). 

•  The  foregoing  comparisons  between  grade  retardation,  elimination, 
and  grade  emphasis  on  content  studies,  are  based  on  the  figures  for 


/ 


98  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [3^8 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  saw  how  education  conserves 
the  mores  of  the  "  masses  "  and  the  mores  of  the  "  classes." 
We  here  observe  the  case  in  which  education  conserves  cer- 
tain mores  of  the  ''  masses  "  in  the  curriculum  of  the  ele- 
mentary school.  As  soon  as  education  becomes  public  and 
is  conducted  on  the  large  scale  so  that  it  reaches  the  masses 
it  gets  into  their  mores  and  becomes  an  instrument  to  pre- 
serve them.  Suetonius  tells  us  of  the  schools  of  the  Latin 
Rhetoricians;  how  at  first  they  were  opposed  because  their 
methods  of  teaching  and  the  things  they  taught  seemed 
fundamentally  different  from  what  *'  our  ancestors  have  or- 
dained," and  how  by  degrees,  when  the  mores  had  time 
to  change  and  absorb  new  notions,  they  became  popular 
and  '*  rhetoric  manifested  itself  to  be  a  useful  and  honor- 
able study."  In  America  time  was  when  "  education  was 
insisted  on  chiefly  for  religious  reasons."  ^  The  secondary 
schools  of  our  early  national  history  had  a  decided  religious 
bias.^  At  the  present  time  religious  instruction  has  dis- 
appeared from  the  curricula  of  our  elementary  schools.^ 
Traditions  have  changed  in  the  increasing  heterogeneity  of 

elimination  in  Professor  Thorndike's  study  of  conditions  in  1900. 
Since  that  date  there  has  been  apparent  progress  in  the  correction  of 
retardation.  The  result  has  been  that  to  make  Thorndike's  figures 
true  to  conditions  of  1910-1911  they  must  be  somewhat  modified. 
They  would  be  approximately  true  of  later  conditions  if  we  con- 
ceived of  them  as  shoved  up  a  grade,  or  of  the  figures  considerably 
reduced  in  their  original  positions.  Such  a  change  in  the  emphasis 
of  elimination  connected  with  the  more  improved  courses  of  instruc- 
tion since  1900  might  mean  a  better  functioning  of  the  elementary 
school  system  were  there  no  reason  for  doubting  that  these  figures 
were  truly  representative.  The  figures  of  Strayer  on  retardation,  and 
the  work  of  Coffman  on  the  teaching  force,  present  reasons  for  doubt- 
ing any  real  increased  efficiency  of  the  schools  since  1900. 

1  E.  P.  Cubberley,  Changing  Conceptions  of  Education,  p.  25. 

» N.  M.  Butler,  Education  in  America,  Monograph  on  "  Secondary 
Education,"  by  Commissioner  E.  E.  Brown,  pp.  143-205. 

'  Monroe,  History  of  Education,  p.  750. 


359]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  gg 

our  population  brought  about  by  the  immigration  of  for- 
eign peoples  with  different  mores  and  different  standards. 
Orthodox  religion  in  its  narrow  sense  is  no  more  the  auto- 
crat of  the  mores  of  the  masses.  Moreover  the  great  in- 
crease in  the  amount  of  our  knowledge  makes  necessary  a 
greater  complexity  of  preparation  for  life.  Ability  to  read, 
write,  and  cipher  is  no  longer  the  distinguishing  mark  of 
an  educated  man.^ 

Any  way  of  acting,  any  way  of  thinking  which  is  habitual, 
all  the  vast  systems  of  usages  which  cover  the  whole  of  life, 
serve  all  its  interests,  and  contain  within  themselves  their 
own  justification  by  tradition  and  use  and  wont — are  mores. 
It  is  "  the  proper  thing "  to  teach  reading,  writing  and 
arithmetic  in  the  elementary  schools,  because,  in  the  memory 
of  men  now  living,  the  schools  have  always  taught  them. 
These  subjects  are  in  the  school  mores.  When  the  newer 
content  studies  were  introduced  they  were  regarded  as 
"  fads  and  frills  ".  The  most  worthy  ones  among  them  now 
have  a  sure  foothold  and  have  come  to  stay. 

Much  aversion  to  *'  fads  and  frills  "  is  not  only  direct 
hostility  to  anything  new  in  the  curriculum,  but  is  also  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  results  of  an  expanding  policy.  It  is 
said  that  the  curriculum  is  overcrowded.  Tlie  overcrowd- 
ing of  curricula  is  probably  caused  in  the  main  by  the  two 
following  tendencies :  First,  an  accumulation  of  material  con- 
sisting of  a  mass  of  scientific  facts  which  present  the  appear- 
ance of  little  coordination  and  much  isolation :  second,  the 
accumulation  of  obsolete  traditional  material  which  becomes 
continually  more  worthless  because  as  time  goes  on  it  gets 
farther  and  farther  away  from  the  traditions  and  prece- 
dents which  originally  put  it  in  the  curriculum.  Conditions 
change  but  the  subjects  in  the  curriculum  are  not  easily  dis- 
lodged. 

»  Cubbcrlcy,  op.  cit.,  pp.  18-19. 


lOO  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [360 

An  examination  of  the  first  of  the  hypothetical  causes 
explains  in  part  the  conditions.  The  new  scientific  ideas 
and  the  ideas  of  evolution,  have  a  diffusion  with  a  rather 
limited  intellectual  class.  Practical  ideas,  entering  the  folk- 
ways and  condensed  and  selected  in  the  mores  represent 
a  wider  diffusion.  Imitation  proceeds  most  readily  from 
above  downward.  New  scientific  ideas  in  the  process  of 
filtration  down  through  the  mores  of  the  masses  have  been 
rubbed  down  and  smoothed  off  like  old  coins,  until  only 
summary  and  glib  propositions  get  currency.^  Scientific 
theories  have  been  broken  up  into  unrelated  facts  and  iso- 
lated instances  for  the  reason  that  as  ideas  they  were  essen- 
tially hostile  and  disturbing  to  folk-beliefs.  The  result  is 
a  compromise.  Dangerous  implications  of  general  scientific 
theory  have  been  avoided  by  reducing  the  study  of  science 
in  the  schools  to  a  study  of  its  most  commonplace  results. 
Therefore,  although  new  scientific  ideas  are  pretty  well  uni- 
fied in  the  upper  fields  of  education,  by  the  time  they  have 
penetrated  to  the  grades  of  the  elementary  school  they  have 
been  reduced  by  impact  with  counter  notions  in  the  mores 
(for  example,  the  traditional  idea  of  creation)  to  a  harmless 
study  of  isolated  and  out-of-date  facts. 

The  recognition  of  this  state  of  affairs  has  led  to  queries 
by  many  writers.  Fouillee  wondered  whether  loading  the 
memory  of  our  youth  with  the  results  of  modern  science, 
"  the  brutal  scientific  fact,"  was  the  best  way  to  develop 
their  intelligence.*  Professor  Dewey  complains  that  in  the 
present  teaching  of  science  the  material  is  presented  in 
purely  objective  form,  or  "  is  treated  as  a  new  peculiar  kind 
of  ex|>erience  which  the  child  can  add  to  that  which  he  has 

*  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  47. 

•Fouillee,   Education   from    the   National   Standpoint    (New    York, 
1892),  Greenstreet  translation,  p.  38. 


361]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  iqi 

already  had."  ^  As  a  matter  of  fact  science  attains  its  real 
value  when  it  gives  ability  to  interpret  and  control  the  ex- 
perience already  had.  But  the  control  that  science  gives  is  a 
control  that  seems  essentially  hostile  to  mores  control.  Sci- 
ence-control is  by  scepticism,  criticism  and  balanced  judg- 
ment; mores-control  is  by  unquestioning  allegiance  to  cus- 
tom and  tradition.  The  two  are  incompatible.  Life  outside  ' 
the  school  is  by  mores.  Inside  the  school  the  attempt  has 
been  to  cultivate  an  acquaintance  with  facts  which  often 
seem  unrelated  to  mores.  Hence  the  unsocial  school  as 
Professor  Dewey  calls  it.^  The  "  tragic  weakness  "  of  the 
school  is  therefore  that  it  endeavors  to  prepare  a  future 
member  of  the  social  order  in  a  medium  in  which  the  condi- 
tions of  the  social  spirit  are  eminently  lacking.^ 

Professor  Albion  W.  Small  reminds  us  that  some  stu- 
dents do  not  see  till  years  after  graduation  from  college 
that  the  diflFerent  subjects  which  they  studied  were  aspects 
of  one  reality,  a  thought  which  pedagogy  had  concealed  in  ^ 
making  the  fragments  prominent.  Professor  Small  goes 
still  deeper  when  he  says  that  the  most  serious  fact  in  this 
pedagogical  perversion  is  not  that  it  limits  knowledge  but 
that  it  distorts  the  whole  attitude  of  men  towards  the 
world.  Instead  of  introducing  them  to  reality  it  tricks 
them  into  the  belief  that  an  unorganized  procession  of  pe- 
dantic abstractions  is  reality.*  Professor  Dewey  says, 
further :  "  There  is  much  of  utter  triviality  of  subject- 
matter  in  elementary  and  secondary  education.  When  we 
investigate  it,  we  find  that  it  is  full  of  facts  taught  that 

'  Dewey,  My  Pedagogic  Creed,  p.  12. 

'  Dewey,  The  School  and  Society  (Chicago,  1899),  p.  85,  et  seq. 

» Ibid. 

*  A.  W.  Small.  Demands  of  Sociology  on  Pedagogy,  p.  20. 


102  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [362 

are  not  facts,  which  have  to  be  unlearned  later  on."  ^  He 
believes  that  this  is  because  the  lower  parts  of  our  system 
are  not  in  vital  touch  with  the  higher. 

The  second  reason  for  the  overcrowding  of  the  curricu- 
lum is  that  the  mores  which  the  elementary  school  con- 
serves are  actually  behind  the  mores  of  the  time  and  place. 
Mores  never  contain  provision  for  their  own  amendment. 
They  do  not  stimulate  thought,  but  the  contrary,  for  the 
thinking  is  already  done  and  is  embodied  within  them.^ 
Mores  are  not  questions,  they  are  answers  to  the  problems 
of  life.  As  such,  they  present  themselves  as  final  and  un- 
changeable and  give  answers  that  are  offered  as  "  the 
truth  "..  Therefore  their  adjustment  to  the  changing  con- 
ditions is  slow  of  necessity  and  is  made  slower  by  the  con- 
ditions of  the  school.  These  are  such  that  whatever  gets 
into  school  mores  is  pretty  certain  to  stay.  The  school  is 
an  institution,  a  social  "concretion"  of  the  most  permanent 
elements  in  the  mores.  The  mores  which  the  school  con- 
serves are  bolstered  up  by  the  "  systematized  sanction  "  of 
institutional  tradition.  School  mores  are  always  deter- 
mined by  the  older  members  of  the  community  and  there-  ^ 
fore  tend  to  be  conservative.  The  mores  determined  by 
the  older  generation  tend  to  persist  in  the  school  curricu- 
lum after  that  generation  has  gone,  and  been  replaced  by  a 
new  one.  The  second  elderly  generation  also  tends  to  be 
conservative,  and  usually  puts  more  confidence  in  precedent 
than  in  initiative.  Consequently  the  oldest  mores  are  likely 
to  persist  in  the  school  curriculum  long  after  the  mores 
of  the  outer  world  have  changed  to  meet  new  conditions. 

A  very  unfortunate  result  of  standardization  on  the  basis 
of  lagging  school  mores  is  seen  in  the  tendency  to  produce 

1  I>ewey,  The  School  and  Society,  pp.  88-89. 
*  Sumner,  Folkways,  p.  79. 


363]  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL  CURRICULA  103 

boys  and  girls  who  are  all  of  one  pattern  as  if  turned  on  a 
lathe.  In  the  public  school  system  there  is  a  tendency  to 
get  large  quantitative  results  on  a  pattern.  An  orthodoxy 
in  regard  to  the  great  doctrines  of  life  is  created/  And 
later  there  develops  a  cock-sure  philosophy  of  common- 
places and  glib  generalizations.  Superficial  knowledge  is 
paraded  as  "  the  latest  "  information  in  history,  geography, 
and  science.  Some  of  it  is  at  least  fifty  years  old.^  Its 
"facts"  have  been  long  since  discarded  in  the  highest  parts 
of  the  educational  system  and  replaced  by  better  observations 
and  a  clearer  understanding  of  conditions.  In  short,  the  lag- 
ging mores  which  education  preserves  confirm  the  philistin- 
ism  which  in  first  instance  comes  out  of  widespread  commer- 
cialism, materialism,  and  the  general  superficiality  of  the 
times.  Education  which  should  correct  the  damaging  sug- 
gestions of  Philistinism  in  fact  often  gives  them  the  stamp 
of  approval.  These  results  are  incident  to  the  progress  of 
a  great  democratic  experiment  and  we  should  try  to  lessen 
them. 

If  indeed  our  elementary  school  is  the  agent  for  shaping 
the  mores  of  the  "  masses  "  it  deserves  much  more  atten- 
tion than  it  has  received.  The  conservation  of  the  mores 
of  selected  *'  classes  "  has  been  the  chief  function  of  educa- 
tion hitherto.  We  have  our  universities,  professional 
schools,  colleges,  and  secondary  schools,  concerned  with 
the  preservation  of  certain  mores  of  the  more  or  less  highly 
selected  classes.  In  these  institutions  there  is  a  tendency 
to  replace  the  traditional  by  the  rational.  Can  we  say  the 
same  of  the  elementary  school?  The  specialized  parts  of 
our  educational  system  rarely  reach  the  95  per  cent  of  our 
school  population  which  attends  only  the  elementary  school. 

*  Sumner,  op.  cit.,  p.  631. 

«  This  is  emphasized  by  Dewey,  Sumner  and  Cubbcrley. 


I04  EDUCATION  AND  THE  MORES  [364 

In  the  elementary  school  lies  the  only  opportunity  to  give 
to  the  people  verified  facts  of  broad  human  interest  which 
should  increasingly  modify  blind  allegiance  to  tradition  and 
afford  a  basis  for  rational  opinion. 

The  mores  are  of  wider  distribution  than  scientific  ideas. 
In  education,  practical  ideas  combined  with  folk  beliefs  and 
folkways  selected  and  condensed  in  mores,  are  bottom'  layers 
of  a  pyramid.  At  the  top  of  the  pyramid  are  scientific  ideas. 
But  the  elimination  of  pupils  from  school  occurs  before  the 
top  layers  are  reached.  So  the  majority  of  those  who  are 
supposed  to  enjoy  the  "  advantages  "  of  our  educational 
system  never  get  to  that  point  in  the  system  where  notions 
and  facts  of  genuine  scientific  value  and  real  human  in- 
terest come  in.  Education  remains,  as  formerly,  the  con-^ 
server  of  tradition. 


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VITA 


The  author  of  this  dissertation  was  born  in  Brooklyn, 
N.  Y.,  February  3,  1888.  He  was  graduated  from  the  East 
High  School  of  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  in  1905,  and,  after  at- 
tending the  University  of  Rochester  for  three  years,  entered 
Columbia  College  in  1908,  and  was  graduated  with  the  de- 
gree of  B.  S.  in  June,  1909.  In  the  fall  of  1909  he  passed 
the  examinations  of  the  Board  of  Education  of  New  York 
City  for  substitute  teacher  of  Mathematics  in  the  High 
Schools.  He  taught  Free-hand  Drawing,  and  later  on. 
Mathematics  in  the  Manual  Training  High  School  of 
Brooklyn.  He  also  substituted  as  teacher  of  Mathematics 
and  Science  in  the  private  secondary  schools  of  New  York 
City.  As  University  Scholar  in  Sociology,  he  pursued 
studies  in  Sociology,  EUronomics,  and  Anthropology  at  Co- 
lumbia University  throughout  the  year  1909-1910,  and  re- 
ceived the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  in  June,  1910.  In  the 
spring  of  19 10,  he  was  made  University  Fellow  in  Sociology 
for  the  year  1910-1911.  He  is  a  member  of  the  American 
Sociological  Society.  At  Columbia  University  his  major 
work  has  been  Sociology  and  Statistics ;  minors  were  taken 
in  Economics  and  Anthropology.  He  has  attended  grad- 
uate courses  in  Sociology  under  Professor  F.  H.  Giddings  and 
Dr.  A.  A.  Tenney;  in  Statistics  under  Professors  F.  Boas 
and  H.  L.  Moore;  in  Economics  under  Professors  E.  R.  A. 
Seligman,  J.  B.  Clark,  H.  R.  Seager,  and  H.  L.  Moore;  in 
Anthropology  under  Professors  F.  Boas  and  L.  Farrand; 
in  History  under  Professors  W.  A.  Dunning,  J.  H.  Robin- 
son, and  H.  L.  Osgood. 

107 


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